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The Railroad 






















































































































Draiv?t by Jay Hambidge. 

“ BUCKS.” 



The Conductor's Story. 




McClure, Phillips & Co 
New York 
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THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

MAR. 13 1901 

Copyright entry 

CLASS <X^Xc. N». 
COPY B. 




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Copyright by S. S. McClure Co. 

May 1899 February 1900 
April 1900 August 1900 
December 1898 

Copyright, 1901, by McClure, Phillips & Co. 




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CONTENTS 


The Night Run of the “ Overland” . 

Elmore Elliott Peake 
The Farmer's Railroad .... 
F. B. Tracy 

A Million Dollar Freight Train 
Frank H. Spearman 

The Winning of the Transcontinental 
William McLeod Raine 
Conductor Pat Francis 
Frank H. Spearman 
An Engineer's Christmas Story 
James A. Hill 


I 


PAGE 

II 

43 

7i 

95 

125 

163 



The Night Run of the 
“Overland” 















THE NIGHT RUN OF THE 
“OVERLAND ” 


A story of domestic life among 

THE RAILROAD PEOPLE 

By Elmore Elliott Peake 

I T snowed. The switch-lamps at Valley 
Junction twinkled faintly through the 
swirling flakes. A broad band of 
light from the night-operator’s room 
shot out into the ^loom, and it, too, was 
thickly powdered. Aside from this, the 
scattered houses of the little hamlet slept in 
darkness—all save one. 

Through the drawn curtains of a cottage 
which squatted in the right angle formed by 
the intersecting tracks, a hundred yards or 
more from the station, a light shone dully. 
Inside, a young woman with a book in her 


ii 



12 


Stories from McClure’s 


lap sat beside a sick-bed. On the bed lay 
a young man of perhaps thirty. 

They were not an ordinary couple, nor of 
the type which prevailed in Valley Junction. 
The rugged strength of the man, which 
shone through even the pallor of sickness, 
was touched and softened by an unmistak¬ 
able gentleness of birth, and the dark eyes 
which rested motionless upon the further 
wall, were thoughtful and liquid with intel¬ 
ligence. The young woman was yet more 
striking. Her loose gown, girdled at the 
waist with a tasseled cord, only half con¬ 
cealed the sturdy, sweeping lines of the form 
beneath. Her placid, womanly face . was 
crowned with a glorious mass of burnished 
auburn hair. Her blue eyes, now fixed 
solicitously upon her husband’s face, were 
dark with what seemed an habitual earnest¬ 
ness of purpose, and her sweet mouth 
drooped seriously. After a moment, though, 
she shook off her pensive mood. “ What 
are you thinking of, dear ? ” she asked with 
a brightening face. 

“ Of you,” answered her husband gravely, 
tightening his grasp upon the hand she had 


The Night Run of the “Overland” 13 

slipped into his. “ Comparing - your life in 
this wretched place, Sylvia, with what it was 
before I married you; and thinking of that 
wonderful thing called Move,’ which can 
make you content with the change.” 

The young woman bent forward with a 
little spasmodic movement, and laid her 
beautiful hair upon the pillow beside her 
husband’s dark strands. For a little she held 
herself in a kind of breathless tension, her 
hand upon his further temple, her full pas- 
smnate lips pressed tight against his cheek. 

Not^ content, my heart’s husband, but 
happy! she whispered, ecstatically. After 
a moment she lifted herself and quietly 
smoothed her ruffled hair. “ I mustn’t do 
that again,” she said, demurely. “The 
doctor said you were not to be excited. I 
guess I won’t allow you to think any more 
on that subject, either,” she added, with 
pretty tyranny. “ Only this, Ben—papa will 
forgive us some day. He’s good. Just give 
him time. Some day you’ll put away your 
dear, foolish pride, and let me write to 
him, and tell him where we are—no matter 
if he did forbid it. And he’ll write back, 


i4 


Stories from McClure’s 


take my word for it, and say, ‘ Come home, 
children, and be forgiven/ But whether he 
does or not, I tell you, sweetheart, I would 
sooner flutter about this little dovecote of 
ours, and ride on the engine with you on 
bright days, than be mistress of the finest 
palace papa’s money can build.” 

For a moment the pair looked the love 
they could not speak. Then the spell was 
broken by the distant scream of a locomo- j 
tive, half-drowned in the howling wind. Syl- i 
via glanced at the clock. 

“ There’s the ‘ Overland,’ ” she mur¬ 
mured. “ She’s three minutes late. The 
wind is dead against her. Some day, dear,” j 
she added, fondly, “ you will hold the throttle 
of that engine, if you want to, and I shall 
be the proudest girl in the land.” 

With a fine unconscious loyalty to the cor¬ 
poration which gave them bread and butter, 
they listened in silence to the dull roar of 
the on-coming train. But instead, a mo¬ 
ment later, of the usual thunderous burst as c 
the train swept by, and the trembling of 
earth, they heard the grinding of brake- 
shoes, the whistle of the air, and then, in 





The Night Run of the “ Overland” 


*5 


the lull which followed, the thumping of the 
pump, like some great, excited heart. At 

thrt Un i? Xami3 r ed occurr ence, the sick man 
threw his wife a startled glance, and she 
sprang to the front window and drew back 
the curtain. She was just turning away 
again, still unsatisfied, when there came a 
quick, imperative rap at the door. Instantly 
connecting this rap with the delayed train 
Sylvia flung the door wide open, revealing 
three men the foremost of whom she recog- 
mzed as the night-operator at the Junction, 
t , , . °? c ’ 1e began with nervous 

_,, 1S 1S the general superintendent, 

.^ y , na ™ e 's Howard, madam,” said the 
official for himself, unceremoniously pushing 
forward “ We are in trouble. Our eng? 
neer had a stroke of apoplexy fifteen miles 
Dack, and I want your husband to take this 

train. 1 know he’s sick, but_” 

But he’s too sick, sir, to hold his head 


l: P • ” Sylvia exclaimed aghast. 


called Fox 


What’s the trouble ? 
sharply, from his bed. 

An instant’s hush fell over the little group 




j6 * Stories from McClure's 

at the door, and then they all, as if moved 
by one impulse, filed quickly back to the 
sick-room. 

“ Mr. Fox, I hate to ask a sick man to 
get out of bed and pull a train/’ began the 
general superintendent hurriedly, before 
Sylvia could speak. “ But we’re tied up here 
hard and fast, with not another engineer in 
sight; and every minute that train stands 
there the company loses a thousand dollars. 

If you can pull her through to Stockton, i 
and will, it will be the best two hours’ work 
that you ever did. I will give you five hun¬ 
dred dollars.” 

Fox had at first risen to his elbow, but he 
now sank back, dizzy and trembling from 
weakness. In a moment, though, he was up 
again. “ I can’t do it. Mr. Howard! I’m 1 
too sick! ” he exclaimed, bitterly. “ If it j 
weren’t a physical impossibility—if I weren’t | 
too dizzy to hold my head up-” 

He broke off abruptly, and pressed his 1 
hand in a dazed way to his brow. Then he 
fixed his excited eyes upon his wife. The J 
other men followed his gaze, plainly regard- * 
ing him as out of his head. But Sylvia 





The Night Run of the “Overland” 

turned pale, and leaned against the wall for 
support. She had caught her husband's 
meaning. 

She 11 take the train, sir! ” exclaimed 
Fox, eagerly; “ and she’ll take it through 
safe. She knows an engine as well as I, 
and every inch of the road. Sylvia, you 
must go. It is your duty.” 

The superintendent, staggered at this 
amazing proposition, gasped, and stared at 
the young woman. She stood with her di¬ 
lated eyes fastened upon her husband, her 
chest rising and falling, and blood-red 
tongues of returning color shooting through 
her cheeks. Yet even in that crucial mo¬ 
ment, when her little heart was fluttering 
like a w.ounded bird, something in Sylvia’s 
eye—something hard and stubborn—fixed 
the skeptical superintendent’s attention, and 
he drew a step nearer. Sylvia, with twitch- 
ing nostrils and swelling throat, turned 
upon him almost desperately. 

I will go,” she said, in a low, resigned 
voice. “ But some one must stay here with 
him.” 

“ This young man will attend to all that, 




18 Stories from McClure’s 

never fret,” cried Howard gaily, in his re¬ 
lief, turning to the night-operator. 

Whatever doubts the superintendent may 
have harbored yet of the fair engineer’s 
nerve and skill were plainly removed when 
Sylvia returned from an inner room, after 
an absence of scarcely sixty seconds. An 
indomitable courage was stamped upon her 
handsome features, and she bore herself 
with the firm, subdued mien of one who 
knows the gravity of her task, yet has faith 
in herself for its performance. One of her 
husband’s caps was drawn tightly over her 
thick hair. She had slipped into a short 
walking-skirt, and as she advanced she 
calmly but swiftly buttoned her jacket. 
Without hesitation, she stepped to the bed¬ 
side and kissed her husband good-by. 

“ Be brave, girl! ” he said encouragingly, 
though his own voice shook. “ You have 
got to make seventy-five miles an hour, or 
better; but you’ve got the machine to do it 
with. Give her her head on all the grades 
except Four Mile Creek—don’t be afraid!— 
and give her a little sand on Beechtree Hill. 
Good-by—and God keep you! ” 



The Night Run of the “Overland” lg 

As Sylvia stood beneath the great black 
hulk of iron and steel which drew the 
1 Overland "—compared with which her 
husband’s little local engine was but a toy— 
and glanced down the long line of mail, ex¬ 
press and sleeping-cars, laden with human 
freight, her heart almost failed her again. 
1 he mighty boiler towered high above her in 
the darkness like the body of some horrible 
antediluvian monster, and the steam rushed 
angrily from the dome, as though the great 
animal were fretting under the unaccountable 
delay, and longed again to be off on the 
wings of the wind, rending the tempest 
with its iron snout, and awakening the 
sleeping hills and hollows with its hoarse 
shriek. 

“You are a brave little woman," she heard 
the superintendent saying at the cab-step. 

Don t lose your nerve—but make time 
whatever else you do. Every minute you 
make up is money in the company’s pocket, 
and they won’t forget it. Besides," he 
added, familiarly, “ we’ve got a big gun 
aboard, and I want to show him that a little 
thing like this don’t flustrate us any. If you 




20 Stories from McClure’s 

draw into Stockton on time, I'll add five 
hundred dollars to that check! Remember 
that.” And he lifted her up to the cab. 

The fireman, a young Irishman, stared at 
Sylvia as she stepped into the cab as though 
she were a banshee; but she made no expla¬ 
nations, and, after a glance at the steam and 
the water gauges, climbed up to the engi¬ 
neer’s high seat. The hand she laid upon 
the throttle-lever trembled slightly—as well 
it might; the huge iron horse quivered and 
stiffened, as if bracing itself for its task; 
noiselessly and imperceptibly it moved 
ahead, expelled one mighty breath, then an¬ 
other and another, quicker and quicker, 
shorter and shorter, until its respirations 
were lost in one continuous flow of steam. 
The “ Overland ” was once more under 
way. 

The locomotive responded ‘to Sylvia’s 
touch with an alacrity which seemed almost 
human, and which, familiar though she was 
with the work, thrilled her through and 
through. She glanced at the time-table. 
They were twelve minutes behind time. The 
twenty miles between the Junction and Graf- 




The Night Run of the “ Overiand 


21 


ton lay in a straight, level line. Sylvia de¬ 
termined to use it to good purpose, and to 
harden herself at once—as, indeed, she must 
—to the dizzy speed required by the in¬ 
exorable schedule. She threw the throttle 
wide open, and pushed the reverse-lever 
into the last notch. The great machine 
seemed suddenly animated with a demoniac 
energy, and soon they were shooting through 
the black, storm-beaten night like an aveng¬ 
ing bolt from the hand of a colossal god. 
The headlight—so dazzling from in front, 
sc insufficient from behind—danced feebly 
ahead upon the driving cloud of snow. But 
that was all. The track was illuminated for 
scarcely fifty feet, and the night yawned be¬ 
yond like some engulfing abyss. Sylvia 
momentarily closed her eyes and prayed that 
no unfortunate creature—human or brute 
—-might wander that night between the 
rails. 

The fireman danced attendance on the fire, 
watching his heat and water as jealously as 
a doctor might watch the pulse of a fevered 
patient. Now the furnace-door was closed, 
now it hung on its latch; now. it was closed 




22 


Stories from McClure’s 


again, and now, when the ravenous maw 
within cried for more coal, it was flung wide 
open, lighting the driving cloud of steam 
and smoke above with a spectral glare. 

Sylvia worked with the fireman with a fine 
intelligence which only the initiated could 
understand; for an engine is a steed whose 
speed depends upon its driver. She opened 
or closed the injector, to economize heat and 
water, and eased the steam when it could be 
spared. Thus together they coaxed, cajoled, 
threatened, and goaded the wheeled monster 
until, like a veritable thing of life, it seemed 
to strain every nerve to do their bidding, and 
whirled them faster and faster. Yet, as 
they flashed through Grafton—scarcely dis¬ 
tinguishable in the darkness and the storm 
—they were still ten minutes behind time. 
Sylvia shut her lips tightly. If it was nec¬ 
essary to defy death on the curves and grades 
ahead, defy death she would. 

The sticky snow on her glass now cut of¥ 
Sylvia’s vision ahead. It mattered little, for 
her life and the lives of the sleeping passen¬ 
gers behind were in higher hands than hers, 
and only the All-seeing Eye could see that 





The Night Run of the “ Overland 


23 


night. Another train ahead, an open switch, 
a fallen rock or tree—one awful crash, and 
the engine would become a gridiron for her 
tender flesh, while the palatial cars behind, 
now so full of warmth and light and com¬ 
fort, would suddenly be turned into mere 
shapeless heaps of death. Yet Sylvia cau¬ 
tiously opened her door a little, and held 
it firmly against the hurricane while she 
brushed off the snow. At the same time she 
noticed that the headlight was burning dim. 

“ The headlight is covered with snow! 99 
she called to the fireman. 

The young fellow instantly drew his cap 
tighter, braced himself, and sw.ung open his 
door. At the first cruel blast, the speed of 
which was that of the gale added to that of 
the train, he closed his eyes and held his 
breath; then, taking his life in his hands, he 
slipped out upon the wet, treacherous run¬ 
ning-board of the pitching locomotive, made 
his way forward, and cleared the glass. Syl¬ 
via waited with bated breath until his head 
appeared in the door again. 

“ Fire up, please! ” she exclaimed, nerv¬ 
ously, for the steam had fallen off a pound. 




24 


Stories from McClure’s 


As the twinkling street-lamps of Nancy- 
ville came into view, Sylvia blew a long 
blast. But there was no tuneful reverbera¬ 
tion among the hills that night, for the wind, 
like some ferocious beast of prey, pounced 
upon the sound and throttled it in the teeth of 
the whistle. The Foxes shopped in Nancy- 
ville—they could shop fifty miles from home 
as easily as fifty rods—and the town, by com¬ 
parison with Valley Junction, was beginning 
to seem like a little city to Sylvia. But to¬ 
night, sitting at the helm of that transcon¬ 
tinental train, which burst upon the town 
like a cyclone, with a shriek and a roar, and 
then was gone again all in a breath, she 
scarcely recognized the place; and it seemed 
little and rural and mean to her, a mere eddy 
in the world’s great current. 

One-third of the one hundred and forty- 
nine miles was now gone, and still the 
“ Overland ” was ten minutes behind, and it 
seemed as if no human power could make up 
the time. They were winding through the 
Tallahula Hills, where the road was as 
crooked as a serpent’s trail. The engine 
jerked viciously from side to side, as if 



The Night Run of the “ Overland 


2 5 


angrily resenting the pitiless goading from 
behind, and twice Sylvia was nearly thrown 
from her seat. The wheels savagely ground 
the rails at every curve, and made them 
shriek in agony. One side of the engine 
first mounted upward, like a ship upon a 
wave, then suddenly sank, as if engulfed. 
One instant Sylvia was lifted high above her 
fireman, the next dropped far below him. 

Yet she dared not slacken speed. The 
cry of “ Time! Time! Time! ” was dinned 
into her ears with every stroke of the piston. 
Her train was but one wheel—nay, but one 
cog on one wheel—in the vast and compli¬ 
cated machine of transportation. Yet one 
slip of that cog would rudely jar the whole 
delicate mechanicism from coast to coast. 
Indeed, in Sylvia’s excited fancy, the spirit 
of world-wide commercialism seemed riding 
on the gale above her, like Odin of old in 
the Wildhunt, urging her on and on. 

Something of all this was in the mind of 
the fireman, too, in a simpler way; and when 
he glanced at his gentle superior from time 
to time, as she clung desperately to the arm¬ 
rest with one hand and clutched the reverse- 


26 


Stories front McClure’s 


lever with the other, with white, set face, 
but firm mouth and fearless eye, his blue 
eyes flashed with a chivalric fire. 

The train dashed into Carbondale, and 
Sylvia made out ahead the glowing headlight 
of the east-bound train, side-tracked and 
waiting for the belated “ Overland,” her en¬ 
gineer and conductor doubtless fuming and 
fretting. For the first time during the run 
Sylvia allowed a morbid, nervous fear to 
take hold of her. Suppose the switch were 
open! She knew that it must be closed, 
but the sickening possibility presented itself 
over and over again, with its train of hor¬ 
rors, in the brief space of a few seconds. 
She held her breath and half closed her eyes 
as . they thundered down upon the other 
train; and when the engine lurched a little 
as it struck the switch, her heart leaped into 
her mouth. The suspense was mercifully 
short, though, for in an instant, as it were, 
they were past the danger, past the town, 
and once more scouring the open country. 

In spite of the half-pipe of sand which she 
let run as they climbed Beechtree Hill—the 
last of the Tallahulas—it seemed to Sylvia 



The Night Run of the “Overland” 


27 


as if they would never reach the summit and 
as if the locomotive had lost all its vim. 
Yet the speed was slow only by contrast, 
and in reality was terrific; and the tireless 
steed upon whose high haunch Sylvia was 
perched was doing the noblest work of the 
night. At last, though, the high level of 
the Barren Plains was gained, and for forty 
miles—which were reeled off in less than 
thirty minutes—they swept along like an 
albatross on the crest of a gale, smoothly 
and almost noiselessly in the deadening 
snow. 

Sylvia suspected that the engine was doing 
no better right here than it did every night 
of the year, and that when on time. Yet 
when she glanced from the time-table to the 
clock, as they clicked over the switch-points 
of Melrose with a force which seemed suffi¬ 
cient to snap them off like icicles, she was 
chagrined to discover that they were still 
eight minutes behind. They were now ap¬ 
proaching the long twelve-mile descent of 
Four Mile Creek, with a beautiful level 
stretch at the bottom through the Spirit 
River Valley. Sylvia came to a grim de- 


28 


Stories from McClure’s 


termination. Half a dozen times previously 
she had wondered, in her unfamiliarity with 
heavy trains and their magnificent speed, if 
she were falling short of or exceeding the 
safety limit; and half a dozen times she had 
been on the point of appealing to the fire¬ 
man. But her pride, even in that momen¬ 
tous crisis, had restrained her; and, more¬ 
over, the time-table, nlutely urging her 
faster and faster, seemed answer enough. 
But just before they struck the grade, the 
responsibility of her determination—con¬ 
trary, too, to her husband’s advice—seemed 
too much to bear alone. 

“ I am going to let her have her head! ” 
she cried out, in her distress. 

The fireman did not answer—perhaps he 
did not hear—and, setting her teeth, Sylvia 
assumed the grim burden alone. The pon¬ 
derous locomotive fell over the brow of the 
hill, with her throttle agape, and the fire 
seething in her vitals with volcanic fury. 
Then she lowered her head like a maddened 
bull in its charge. The long, heavy train, 
sweeping down the sharp descent, might fitly 
have been likened to some winged dragon 



The Night Run of the “Overland” 


29 


flying low to earth, so appallingly flightlike 
was the motion. It seemed to Sylvia as 
though they dropped down the grade as an 
aerolite drops from heaven—silent, irresisti¬ 
ble, awful, touched only by the circumam¬ 
bient air. 

All Sylvia’s familiar methods of gauging 
speed were now. at fault, but she believed 
that for the moment they were running two 
miles to every minute. The thought that a 
puny human hand—a woman’s hand, more¬ 
over, contrived for the soft offices of love— 
could stay that grand momentum, seemed 
wildly absurd; and as Sylvia, under the 
strange lassitude born of her deadly peril, 
relaxed her tense muscles and drowsily 
closed her eyes, she smiled, with a ghastly 
humor, at the trust of the sleeping passen¬ 
gers in her! 

She was rudely shaken out of her lethargy 
as the train struck a slight curve half way 
down the grade. The locomotive shied like 
a frightened steed, and shook in every iron 
muscle. The flanges shrieked against the 
rails, the cab swaved and cracked, and the 
very earth seemed to tremble. For a mo- 


3° 


Stories from McClure’s 


ment the startled girl was sure they were 
upon the ties, or at least had lost a wheel. 
But it was only the terrible momentum lift¬ 
ing them momentarily from the track, and in 
a few seconds—though every second meant 
150 feet—the fire T eating behemoth righted 
itself. Yet its beautiful equilibrium was 
gone; and, as if abandoning itself to its 
driver’s mad mood, the engine rolled and 
pitched, and rose and fell, like a water¬ 
logged vessel in a storm. The bell, catching 
the motion, began to toll; and the dolorous 
sound, twisted into weird discord by the 
gale, fell upon the ears of the pallid engi¬ 
neer and fireman like the notes of a storm- 
tossed bell-buoy sounding the knell of the 
doomed. 

The young fireman, who up to this time 
had maintained a stoical calm, suddenly 
sprang to the floor of the cab, with a face 
torn by superstitious fear. 

“ What if she leaves the rails! ” he cried. 

But instantlyrecovering himself, he sprang 
back to his seat, with the blood of shame on 
his cheeks. 

“Am I running too fast? ” shouted Sylvia. 




The Night Run of the “Overland” 


3 i 


“ Not when we’re behind time! ” he dog¬ 
gedly shouted back. 

As the track became smoother, the engine 
grew calmer; but its barred tongue licked 
up the flying space for many a mile before 
the momentum of that perilous descent was 
lost. As the roar of their passage over the 
long bridge spanning the Mattunk, twenty 
miles from Stockton, died away, the fireman 
called out cheerily: 

“ On time, madam! ” 

His voice reached Sylvia’s swimming ears 
faint and distant as she nodded dizzily on 
her seat, bracing herself against the reverse- 
lever. 

Meanwhile, in the general superintend¬ 
ent’s private car, at the extreme rear of the 
train, a party of men still sat up, smoking 
their Havanas and sipping their wine. One 
member of this party was the “ big gun ” 
mentioned to Sylvia by the general superin¬ 
tendent—the president of the Mississippi 
Valley, Omaha, and Western Railway. He 
was a large man, with luxuriant, snow- 
white hair; and, though his face was benev¬ 
olent, even paternal, every line of it betrayed 


3 2 


Stories from McClure’s 


the inflexible will which had lifted its owner 
from the roof of a freight car to the presi¬ 
dential chair of a great road. 

Mr. Howard, the general superintendent, 
was regaling the party with an account of 
his experience in securing a substitute en¬ 
gineer at Valley Junction. For reasons 
afterward divulged, he suppressed, though, 
the most startling feature of his story; 
namely, the sex of the engine-runner he had 
secured. But he compensated his hearers 
for this omission with a most dramatic ac¬ 
count of the heroism of the sick man, whom 
he unblushingly represented as having risen 
from his bed and taken charge of the engine. 

Mr. Staniford, the distinguished guest, 
listened quietly until Howard was done. 
“ Charlie, you are a heartless wretch/’ he 
observed, smiling; and when Howard pro¬ 
tested, with a twinkle in his eye, that there 
was no other way, the president added: “ If 
it had been on my road, I should have held 
the train all night rather than drag a sick 
man from his bed.” 

“ We all know how many trains are held 
all night on your road, Staniford,” answered 


The Night Run of the “ Overland 


33 


Howard, laughing. “ Do you happen to re¬ 
member the story of an ambitious young en¬ 
gineer who picked himself up out of a wreck 
with a broken arm, and stepped into a new 
engine, and pulled his train through to the 
end of the run ? ” he asked significantly. 

“ I was young then and working for glory, 
and no superintendent ordered me to do it, 
or I should probably have refused,” added 
Staniford, good-naturedly. He added so¬ 
berly : “ These engineers are a heroic set, 
and. Charlie, sometimes I think we don’t al¬ 
ways do them justice.” 

“ I’ll do this one justice,” answered How¬ 
ard, warmly. 

The party dropped off to bed, one by one. 
The general superintendent himself finally 
rose and looked at his watch. As he turned 
and made his way forward, his careless ex¬ 
pression gave way to one of concern. His 
mind was evidently on the gentle engine-run¬ 
ner. Possibly he had recurring doubts of 
her skill and courage; but perhaps the fact 
that he had daughters of his own gave his 
thought, as much as anything else, a graver 
turn. Three cars ahead he met the con- 


34 


Stories from McClure’s 


ductor, who also seemed a little nervous, 
and they talked together for some moments. 
I he tram, at the time, was snapping around 
the choppy curves in the Tallahula Hills 
like the flash of a whip, and the two men 
had difficulty in keeping their feet. 

Fast, but not too fast, Dackins,” ob- 
served the superintendent, half inquiringly. 

What I call a high safety,” answered 
the conductor. 

“ But fearful in the cab, eh ? ” 

. “ Nothing equal to it, sir,” rejoined Dack- 
ms, dryly. 

Howard started back toward the private 
car about the time the train struck Beech- 
P a . usec | i n a vestibule, opened 
the door, and laid his practised ear to the 
din outside. Then he gently closed the door, 
as if to slam it might break the spell, and 
complacently smiled. When the train reached 
the level of Barren Plains, and the sleepers 
ceased their swaying and settled down to a 
smooth, straightaway motion—that sure an- 
nU i n i C ^ kigh speed—the superintendent 

rubbed his palms together very much like a 
man shaking hands with himself. When he 


The Night Run of the “Overland” 35 

got back to his car, he found Mr. Staniford 
still up, smoking, and leaning back in the 
luxurious seat with half-closed eyes. Stani¬ 
ford motioned Howard to sit down beside 
him, and laid his hand familiarly on the lat¬ 
ter’s knee. 

“ Confound you, Charlie, you’ve got that 
sick engineer on my heart, with your inflam¬ 
matory descriptions, for which you probably 
drew largely on your imagination. I have 
been sitting here thinking about him. Con¬ 
fess, now, that you exaggerated matters a 
little.” 

The superintendent chuckled like a man 
who knows a thing or two, if he only chose 
to tell. “ Well, I did, in one respect; but 
in another I fell short.” He paused for ef¬ 
fect, and then continued exultingly: “ Stani¬ 
ford, I’ve got the best railroad story to give 
the papers that has been brought out in 
years, and if I don’t get several thousand 
dollars’ worth of free advertising out of it, 
my name isn’t C. W. Howard. The best of 
it is, it’s the gospel truth.” 

“ Let’s have it,” said Staniford, smiling. 

“ Well, between you and me, that man 


36 


Stories from McClure’s 


Fox was a mighty sick man—too sick to 
hold his head up, in fact.” Howard paused 
inquiringly as Staniford turned sharply, and 
gave him a glance. 

“ Fox, did you say ? ” asked Staniford. 
“ What’s his first name ? ” 

“ I don’t know.. He’s a tall, smooth-faced 
man, with dark hair and eyes. Rather in¬ 
telligent-looking. What do you know about 
him ? He s a comparatively new man with 
us.” 

The old man’s fingers trembled slightly as 
he flicked the ashes from his cigar. “ I 
don t know that I know him,” he answered, 
in a constrained tone. “ If he’s the man I 
have in mind, he’s all right. Go on.” 

“ Ever run on your road ? ” inquired 
Howard, deliberately. 

“ Yes, yes. But that has nothing to do 
with it,” returned Staniford, with strange 
impatience. “ Go on.” 

“Well,” continued the superintendent, 
with a mildly curious glance at his compan¬ 
ion, “ he was altogether too sick to pull a 
plug. But it seems that his wife has been 



The Night Run of the “ Overland 


37 


in the habit of riding with him, and knows 
the road and an engine as well as he does. 
To come to the point—and this is my story, 
which I didn’t tell the boys for the sake of 
their nerves,” he added, with sparkling eyes 
—“ the ‘ Overland ’ at this moment is in the 
hands of a girl, sir—Fox’s wife! ” 

It seemed a long time before either man 
spoke again. Howard stared in blank 
amazement at the pallid face of the presi¬ 
dent, unable to understand the old rail¬ 
roader’s agitation, and unwilling to attribute 
it to fear from being in the hands of an 
engineer who might lose her head. Then 
Stamford took the other’s hand, and held it 
in an iron grip. 

“ Charlie, it’s my own little baby girl! ” 
he said, huskily. 

Howard was familiar with the story of the 
elopement of Staniford’s daughter with one 
of the M. V., O., and W. engineers, and the 
situation flashed over him in an instant. 
After a moment—during which, as he after¬ 
ward confessed, he could not keep his mind 
off the added sensation this new fact would 


3« 


Stories from McClure’s 


give his advertising story—he said enthusi¬ 
astically : “ She’s a heroine, Staniford, and 
worthy of her father! ” 

During the perilous descent of Four Mile 
Creek, the private car rocked like a cradle, 
and cracked and snapped in every point. 
Staniford clung helplessly to Howard's 
hand, with the tears trickling down his 
cheeks. When the bottom was at last 
reached and the danger was over—the 
danger at the front—the president drew his 
handkerchief and wiped the great drops of 
sweat from his brow. The ex-engineer 
knew the agony through which his child had 
passed. 

The operator at Valley Junction had 
flashed the news along the wire, and when 
the “ Overland ” steamed up to the union 
depot in Stockton, at i: 07, twenty seconds 
ahead of time, a curious and enthusiastic 
throng of lay-over passengers and railroad 
men pressed around the engine. When Syl¬ 
via appeared in the gangway, her glorious 
sun-kissed hair glistening with melted snow, 
and her pale face streaked with soot, the 


The Night Run of the “ Overland 


39 


generous crowd burst into yells of applause. 
The husky old veteran runner who was to 
take the girl’s place stepped forward, by 
virtue of his office, as it were, and lifted 
Sylvia down. For a moment she reeled, 
partly from faintness, partly from the sick¬ 
ness caused by the pitching of the locomo¬ 
tive. Then she saw pushing unceremo¬ 
niously through the throng the general su¬ 
perintendent and—she started and looked 
again—her father! 

When President Staniford, struggling to 
control his emotion, clasped his daughter to 
his bosom, her overstrained nerves gave way 
under the double excitement; and, laying 
her head wearily upon his shoulder, and with 
her hands upon his neck, she began to cry in 
a choked, pitiful little way. “ Oh, papa, call 
me your dear little red-head once more!” 
she sobbed. 


♦ 



The Farmer’s Railroad 







the FARMER’S RAILROAD 

By F. B. Tracy 


W E’LL now open this meetin’ with 
pra r. Brother Mercer, will 
you lead in pra’r?” 

w ,, Th , e people arose While 
Mayor Mercer asked the Lord to bless the 
gathering. 

The audience was typical of the dwellers 
on the second mountain ” (which was not 
a mountain at all, but only the second eleva¬ 
tion from the level of the river, eighty miles 
awayj. ihey were uncouth people in ap¬ 
pearance and unique in composition. Their 
long dog-skin overcoats, their high coon- 
skm caps, their uncombed hair and shag-ev 
beards, all told of their hardy, toilsome 
pioneer life. Fifteen years ago that now 
rapidly growing and rich section of Dakota 
lay deserted by all save the roaring blizzards, 
the wolves, and the deer—lay all uncon- 

43 


44 


Stories from McClure’s 

scious of the majestic power in its womb to 
yield No. i hard wheat, which at Liverpool 
grades above all other wheat in the world. 
Those who first dared to try its worth were 
Manitobans, and after they had uncovered 
its great secret, floods of Canadians, chiefly 
from Ontario, followed them, until it be¬ 
came a New Ontario in Dakota. Despite 
their Scotch conservatism, they were keenly 
alive to all new sensations, and the freshness 
and oddity of this prairie life seemed to them 
an attribute of the United States rather than 
conditions pertaining to all pioneer sections 
in the wheat belt. 

The presence of these people in that hall 
of the proud and new court-house at Lan¬ 
sing was to hear Daniel Minds give out his 
scheme of railroad-building. At the end of 
the prayer, the man who had called for it 
rose from his knees (he was a Methodist) 
and began to talk in an embarrassed, halting 
manner. There was something peculiarly 
attractive in his way of speaking. If you 
had passed him as he was often seen in De¬ 
cember, walking beside his wheat wagon 
to keep warm on his way to market at Lan- 


The Farmer’s Railroad 

45 

sm ?/ you would have seen little that was 

So? Tii,"? ”““t -” s » f ">« 

color. His dress was plain and roug-h but 

gedcaHv and" b > U h Shed ' Awkwardl y apolo- 
gedcally and with a strange smile, he said: 

f r. P ° Se want tuh know what I’ve 

railroad tMs "T p,an to build a 

Well, it seems kinder funny fer 

me to stand up here and try tuh tall! tuh 
yuh. Amany of yuh, I reckon, think mj 
place is cleamn out Moody’s stable ’z I 
useto do seven and eight years ago ’ Law 

tell’ vuTin 1 C T- t make a s P eech but I can 
w Mr* 1 • , P u ln way what is the Lord’s 
the f tl ?r/ 0ad > fer 1 b’lieve that 

the Lord hez called me tuh this work and 

that s why I asked Frank Mercer tuh open 
the meetm’ with pra’r. P 

. ‘ Yah kno , w ' 1 Ruess, that we’ve hed purty 

hard times the last few years. Of course! 


4 6 


Stories from McClure’s 

we ain’t ez bad off ez the corn States, and 
’z long ez this land will raise ’z good wheat 
*z it does now and z much of it, we 11 git 
along. But we ain’t doin’ ’z well as we 
useto when wheat was so high. Now, 1 
don’t look fer any more dollar wheat, stiddy. 

I don’t know why. Some say it’s silver, and 
some say it’s terif, but it seems tuh me that 
with all this wild land bein’ plowed up and 
sowed in wheat, and with folks in the cities 
agitatin’ colonization of the poor inter the 
country, we can’t expect anything but more 
wheat and lower prices. And the only thing 
we can do is to keep down expenses, and 
lower what it costs to produce the wheat. 

“ Now one big reason why you and me 
hev suh little left after the crop is sold is the 
big slice the railroad takes of it. The Great 
Mogul charges us jest ez much fer haulin’ 
our stuff tuh Duluth ’z he did ten years ago, 
when wheat was worth a dollar a bushel. 
Ten cents a bushel freight on wheat that 
brings only sixty cents a bushel at Duluth 
for the best, and* a heap sight less for what’s 
got caught by a frost, is too high, and yuh 
all know it is. 




The Farmer’s Railroad 


47 


v high charge works two ways. 

Yuh know we complain a good deal at the 
* wa >" the stores st ick it onto us in the way of 
prices; sometimes they’re twict what they 
are in Ontario. Well, Brother Mercer 
showed me a freight bill the other day on 
some hardware, and it was awful. It ex¬ 
plained tuh me why he had tuh charge suh 
much fer his goods. s 

“ Now you fellers know all this, and I 
tell yuh the on!y way fer tuh get relief is fer 
us tuh build a road ourselves up tuh Duluth. 

1 won t help us at all to git in another road 
here of the same kind ’z this one. They’ve 
got both roads at Gardner, and they ain’t 
any better off. They purtend tuh fight a 

J?*’ bu L Jt s a * a h um bug, and I b’lieve the 
Great Mogul owns ’em both. 

I got our school-teacher at Hanning tuh 
draw a map fer me, and here it is. Yuh 
see, both these Dakota roads sway ’way 
down to the south a hundred and more miles 
out of their way to Duluth. Why don’t they 
run straight? Here I’ve drawed a line 
acrost from this town of Lansing straight 
tuh Duluth, over land where a grade would 




48 


Stories from McClure’s 


cost ’most nuthin’ and a hundred miles could 
be saved. This road’s goin’ tuh be built 
some day. The only question is, whether 
we’re goin’ tuh build it fer our own benefit 
er let some Eastern fellers build it fer theirs. 
I say we can build that road, and I’ll tell 


yuh how.” 

Daniel Minds had always been odd. In 
his youth he was converted, and became a 
camp-meeting exhorter and revivalist in his 
ignorant, hearty, and peculiar way; but sud- 1 
denly “ the power ” left him, and he re- ; 
turned uncomplainingly to his farm drudg¬ 
ery, holding fast all the while to his devout 
faith. He first became known to Dakotans 
as the smart banker Moody’s roustabout and 
stable-boy. He later filed on a homestead 
just across on this side of the international 
boundary, and, after marrying one of Al¬ 
fred Aker’s daughters, settled down on his 
quarter section. To all appearances he was 
a serious, hard-working farmer, like hun¬ 
dreds of others who helped to enthrone King 
Wheat in that frozen land. He was regard¬ 
ed as “ queer ” by his neighbors; but they 
were all queer, and that phrase meant little. 



The Farmer’s Railroad 


49 

He was thoughtful, and the long winter 
nights gave him opportunity for much read- 
mg. In some way his attention became 
fixed on the transportation problem, and it 
absorbed him. He brooded over it summer 
and winter, and it would not let him rest. 
Bit by bit a plan came to him, and at length 
he unfolded it to friends and relatives. They 
told him that it was wild and impracticable, 

\ out their words disturbed him in no way! 

Night after night he would rise from his bed, 

| an< ^ gazing from the one window of his 
! shack, far into the north, where the aurora 
is seen to play most brilliantly many times 
in the year, he would give himself up to 
planning for the success of his railroad 
scheme. 

This meeting at Lansing was his first one, 
and it had attracted a great crowd. But it 
was a silent, undemonstrative throng to 
which he poured out his hopes and plans. 
The road was to be called the Farmers 
Railroad, and it was to be built by the farm¬ 
ers of the Red River Valley themselves. The 
grade once built, the remainder of the task 
would be easy. The project was to earn no 



5° 


Stories from McClure’s 


profits, except to keep up repairs and equip¬ 
ments, and was to be wholly cooperative and 
owned by the people along the line. But 
the message was too good to be true, and the 
audience would not receive it. They did not 
rend him to pieces. Their crucifixion took 
another form. When he had done, he asked 
any who cared, to propound questions to 
him; but no one replied. All sat perfectly 
quiet, until one arose and left, and then, one 
by one, all the remainder followed his ex- ■ 
ample, not even the mayor, who cordially 
liked Minds, caring to talk to him when he 
was most probably, in a condition of mind so 
downcast. Yet they were all self-convicted 
cowards. They believed Minds was right f 
and that his scheme was possible, but they . 
were afraid to say so to one another. Even 
in their boisterous laughter and ridicule, 
which floated up to Minds as they poured 
down into the street, they were saying to 
themselves, “ We build the road? I believe 
we really can, but it sounds foolish, and I 
am not going to expose myself to my as¬ 
sociates’ ridicule, when it is evident that they 
all think Minds is crazy.” 



The Farmer’s Railroad tj! 

Minds sat quietly in his chair until they 
had all gone, and then arose, and said noth¬ 
ing as he helped the janitor put out the 
lights. As they walked down the stairs he 
made some remark about the weather, and 
with a cheery “ Good-by ” he went to his 
hitching-rack, and was soon off on his pony 
for home. His thoughts may have been 
very bitter as he rode across the trackless, 
treeless, fenceless, and almost houseless 
country from Lansing to the boundary, 
thirty miles away. But not at that time, nor 
at any other time, did anyone hear him speak 
bitterly or hopelessly. To his wife’s anxious 
inquiry he said : 

“We hed a big meetin’, but they wouldn’t 
say anything. I guess they didn’t think 
much of the talk; but when they think over 
the railroad scheme, they’ll change their 
minds.” 

Mastered and led by his daimon, he began 
a systematic canvass of towns along the pro¬ 
posed route to the river. The results were 
apparently the same. His fame had pre¬ 
ceded him, and he was pictured as a harm¬ 
less vision-chaser. In several of his meet- 





52 


Stories from McClure’s 


ings he was interrupted by jeers, but his 
good nature did not leave him. At Brigh¬ 
ton, however, on the river, he met his first 
encouragement. Judicious and respectful 
questions were asked of him, and several 
leading citizens remained to talk with him 
after the meeting was over. 

He had felt, for some time, a great long¬ 
ing to go to St. Paul, the headquarters of 
the Northwestern railways, and learn how 
those great roads were managed. This 
feeling grew too strong for resistance when 
he arrived at Brighton. But he had little 
money, and he could not ride his pony so far 
without danger of hurting it permanently. 
So he threw the bridle back over the pony’s 
head, slapped the rump, and started the little 
animal back to the Hanning farm. Then he 
crossed the river, and began a 400-mile walk 
to St. Paul. 

The Great Mogul was busy at his desk 
when his office boy came in and, with some 
hesitancy, said: 

“ There’s a rough-looking fellow out here 
who wants to see you. He has been hang- 




The Farmer’s Railroad 


53 


ing around the building for several days, but 
he won’t see anybody but you.” 

It was one of the Mogul’s cheerful days. 
Prospects for the intercontinental amalga¬ 
mation scheme were becoming excellent. 
The bank across the water had written most 
encouragingly, and it looked to the Mogul 
as if one more visit to Europe would place 
the two great lines in his grasp. So he 
said quickly: 

“ Oh, well, let him in.” 

Minds entered. 

It was late spring, just before seeding, 
and the Northwest was a mass of mud. A 
portion of the mass seemed to have clung to 
Minds. His face was unshaven and worn, 
his trousers were torn, and their sides glis¬ 
tened with mud which had dried there. His 
winter cap looked heavy and wet, and his 
hair was disheveled and knotted. 

At his desk sat the Great Mogul, tall, 
portly, forceful, and with the magnetic tone 
and air of success. Thirty years before, he 
had worked as a day laborer in that city. 
He had seized a slender chance, and had 



54 


Stories from McClure’s 


risen slowly, until his genius for railroad¬ 
building was discovered and developed. He 
grabbed this line and that one, and extended 
them first to Duluth, then to Winnipeg, and 
then on to the West, until by buying, seizing, 
leasing, building, by any means getting lines 
and connections, his trains reached the Pa¬ 
cific. 

Of that whole system he was the Boss, 
the Master. His employees were peons, 
slaves. Scarcely any one paid as poor 
wages as the Great Mogul, and for such 
mean pay no one expected so much work. 
To the high officials of the road, men dis¬ 
tinguished for ability and strength, he was 
overbearing and imperious. His voice was 
the Jupiter Tonans of the railroad world of 
that region. He had bold plans for reach¬ 
ing way out to the Orient and securing the 
monopoly of the business with Japan. Lit¬ 
tle did he care for the protests of the people. 
It was no concern of his that his name was 
a household word in many parts of the 
Northwest, and almost always with bitter¬ 
ness and an oath. The fact that the success 
of his plan would place that region under an 


The Farmer’s Railroad 


55 

industrial despotism was as nothing to him 
compared with the glorification of his suc¬ 
cess and ambition. 

This is the man behind the desk. And be¬ 
fore him stands the Homesteader, the 
Dreamer, the Prairie Dog; rough, uncouth, 
ignorant, but supremely gifted with pure 
visons. 

“ Well, what do you want?” cried the 
Czar in his abrupt way. 

This sharp note startled Minds, and he ad¬ 
vanced to the desk with the same peculiar 
smile, and told the great man of his own 
railroad project, ending with the astonishing 
request, made with simple dignity, for trans¬ 
portation over the lines of the road as a 
courtesy extended from one railroad presi¬ 
dent to another! 

The scene was ludicrous in the eyes of the 
Mogul, and at its consummation he roared 
with glee. It was his first laugh for days, 
and it caused consternation throughout the 
building. After quizzing Minds and finding 
that he was really intending this Utopian 
scheme, the Great Mogul said, "All right, 
I'll give you a pass; ” and then he added with 



Stories from McClure’s 


56 

a chuckle, “ And if you are in the same busi¬ 
ness at the end of the year, drop in and I’ll 
renew it for you.” 

Minds thanked him effusively, and left the 
office with a radiant face. He then went 
directly to Duluth, which was to be the ter¬ 
minus of the new railroad, for there he 
thought he could arouse an interest in busi¬ 
ness men. But his efforts were apparently 
fruitless. The newspapers took him up 
gaily, and had much sport over the visit of 
“ Farmer ” Minds. That city had just felt 
the disaster of a collapsed boom, and no 
farmer from Dakota could enlist the support 
of the quaking business men. 

Unwearied and undaunted, he then 
plunged into the country on a journey never 
before made by a white man. He had been 
told that his proposed line was impracticable, 
because in its route lay lakes and swamps 
which could not be bridged. He determined 
to find out for himself, and set out on foot to 
traverse the land between Duluth and the 
Red River. The thought of starvation, of 
dying on the prairie or in the great woods, 
or being drowned in the lakes did not come 



The Farmer’s Railroad 


57 


to him. He was a dreamer, and he thought 
of naught save the fruition of his dreams. 

It had become almost summer. The moun¬ 
tains lay off in the distance, the first he had 
ever seen; yonder to the east lay Lake Su¬ 
perior, while to the west stretched the rich 
prairie. Now he plunged into the woods, 
and he who had known for so many years a 
land where a riding whip was hard to find 
was almost crazed by the great pineries. 
Luckily he had a chart and a compass, and 
he held doggedly to his route. Now he en¬ 
tered on prairie land, but found few tilled 
fields after leaving the towns. How he slept 
in hollow logs or in the open clearings; how 
he floundered in bogs and swamps, and, once, 
almost went down in the quicksand of a 
creek; how he was welcomed by the trapper, 
the frontiersman, the lone farmer, and the 
Indians of the great reservation, all of whom 
saved him from famine—these are tales 
which he told very seldom, and then only to 
justify his faith in the divinity of his inspira¬ 
tion. To those who entertained him he never 
failed to tell of his mission, and they all knew 
that he was sincere, but doubted his ration- 






Stories from McClure’s 


58 

ality. He found to his great joy that there 
were no serious obstacles to his route, and 
that his first plan was entirely feasible so far 
as the survey was concerned. In three weeks 
he had traversed the 300 miles, and it was 
with a glad heart that he saw the Red River 
and the town of Brighton rise into view. 

The cold and narrow-minded people of 
that region, so unresponsive at first to the 
appeals of the farmer railroad builder, were 
not proof against his earnest and steady ac¬ 
tivity in projecting his doctrines; their 
works could be carried by siege if not by as¬ 
sault, and it was not many months until 
Minds’s many railroad meetings had 
aroused much friendly interest and sym¬ 
pathy. Duluth finally seized hold of the en¬ 
terprise, some capital was provided, a com¬ 
pany was incorporated, of which Minds was 
made president, at a salary of $75 per month, 
and Brighton was made headquarters. In 
every county on the proposed railroad, meet¬ 
ings were held and local organizations were 
formed. The scheme became more clearly 
defined, and its practical nature was seen by 
business men. Minds’s preliminary plan was 



The Farmer’s Railroad 


59 


to issue shares of stock to the farmers and 
business men, for which they would contrib¬ 
ute labor on the grade or money. He fig¬ 
ured that $10 from every quarter-section of 
land through which the railroad passed 
would form a capital large enough for a 
basis. Further than the grading of the road 
he would not go at first in his public plans. 
He was shrewd enough to see that there 
would be needed some additional capital to 
equip the road after the grade should be 
completed. He had now arrived at the point 
in his plans where it was necessary to secure 
the means for the raising of this equipment 
fund. 

So he determined on a bold step which 
startled all his friends and set the press of 
the Northwest into a roar of mirth. He an¬ 
nounced his intention of going to New York 
to negotiate for the capital to complete the 
road. This was a rich opportunity for the 
paragrapher and cartoonist, and they im¬ 
proved it to the full with fanciful sketches 
of, and gibes at, “ Farmer Minds in Wall 
Street,” etc. The idea was, of course, quite 
absurd; but all the ridicule had no effect on 





6o 


Stories from McClure’s 


Minds, who set out for New York with his 
cheerful smile. 

It was a bright morning in February when 
Minds reached New York. He did not pause 
to look at the sights, but as soon as he left 
the station he began to hunt for the haunts 
of the financiers. He soon found, to his 
great dismay, that the day was a holiday and 
no broker’s office would be open. But he 
was especially anxious to see a Western 
United States senator whose real home w r as 
in New York and who was a wealthy rail¬ 
road projector. So he learned the Senator’s 
residence address and went up to the house. 
And this is the story Minds told to the Da¬ 
kota farmers of his visit to the East: 

“ 1 run g the bell at the Senator’s house, 
and the feller that opened the door told me 
that the Senator wasn’t up yet (though it 
was after nine o’clock). He told me tuh 
come back at noon, but he was sure the Sen¬ 
ator wouldn’t see me that day, bein’s it was 
a hollerday. Well, I went back at plum 
noon, and the Senator’s wife, leastways I 
s pose she was his wife, opened the door. 
When I asked to see the Senator, she told 


The Farmer’s Railroad 61 

me that he wouldn’t see me ner anybody else. 
I told her that wouldn’t do at all, I must see 
him, fer I had come two thousan’ miles fer 
that one thing. I went on tellin’ her about 
the Farmer’s Railroad in Dakota, and she 
kept on refusin’, and I guess between us two 
there was considerable noise, until finally the 
Senator himself come out to see what was 
the row. He laughed when he saw me, fer 
some reason, and told me to come in any¬ 
way. 

“ But I tell yuh, he was mad enough when 
he found what I had come fer. ‘ Why/ he 
says, * I’m bothered to death every day with 
these swindlers an’ fools, and I won’t let 
another one of ’em spoil a holiday fer me.’ 
I told him then purty warmlike that I wasn’t 
a swindler er a fool, but a plain Dakota 
farmer, and I kep’ on a-talkin’ that way until 
he said, weary-like, ‘ Oh, well, set down, 
and let’s hear quick what’s yer scheme.’ 

“ So I got out my map and pinned it agin 
the wall, and begun tuh tell him the whole 
thing ez I hev told it tuh you, and he set 
there, sayin’ nuthin’, but blinkin’ his eyes. 
Well, when I got all tired out and couldn’t 



62 


Stories from McClure’s 


think of anything else tuh say, he begun to 
talk, and I wisht yuh could have heard the 
questions he asked me. There was the queer¬ 
est things he asked about—where I lived, 
what kind of a house, who my wife was, how 
many children we had, what we had tuh eat, 
how I done my farmin’, who my neighbors 
was, and a thousand more questions jes’ 
about as funny. 

“ In the evenin’ he sent out fer a chum of 
his, and I went over the whole thing again. 
Then we had supper, er dinner, they called 
it, and it was, sure enough, dinner fer me 
that day, fer I’d had but one meal before 
that. Well. I tell yuh, it was a funny sight, 
me tellin’ them millionaires about things "out 
here on the prairie! Finally, after they had 
looked over my papers and see that I wasn’t 
a fraud, they got off in a corner and talked 
a long time. Well, the upshot of it was that 
they agreed to give me just what I wanted, a 
guarantee to loan me $5,000 a mile for the 
road’s equipment when the gradin’ was 
done. They couldn’t believe at first that the 
road could be built so cheap, but I had all the 
figgers down purty fine, and showed ’em 



The Farmer’s Railroad 


6 3 


how it could be done, and I’ve got their 
agreement in black and white right in my 
pocket. 

“ New York is a purty nice, big place, 
with lots of sights, and I could have spent a 
whole week there, seein’ things; but the 
Farmer’s Railroad didn’t have the time, and 
I went right off to Washington to see about 
gettin’ my bill through Congress. Yuh see, 
when anybody wants to build a road through 
an Indian reservation, he has to git a special 
act of Congress. Well, of course, our road 
runs through that reservation in northern 
Minnesota, and I had to git the law passed. 
Mebbe some of you ’member that some fel¬ 
lers and newspapers in this country said 
it would cost us $50,000 to git that bill 
passed. Well, it was put through and signed 
by the President in a week’s time, and it 
didn’t cost a cent, and them Congressmen 
wouldn’t let the farmer pay for even his 
own meals.” 

On his way back home, Minds visited the 
Carnegie mills at Pittsburg and the Illinois 
Steel Works at Joliet, to see the rails turned 
out and to get their prices. When he ar- 



6 4 


Stories from McClure’s 


rived at Brighton, he found many circulars 
from Wall Street firms and other capitalists 
awaiting him in which they complained be¬ 
cause he had not negotiated with them. 

His campaign among the farmers now 
took on notes of power, inspiration, and tri¬ 
umph. The meetings were very large and 
enthusiastic, and stock was taken up with 
avidity. V arious towns clamored for the 
honor of the main line. Calls came for or¬ 
ganization meetings in Minnesota as well as 
in Dakota. Those who had called Minds a 
lunatic now showered praise upon him and 
entertained him lavishly. The leading men 
of every community became active in sup¬ 
port of the project. Its success seemed cer- 
tciin. 

Soon, however, nature conspired with 
many other circumstances in an attitude 
w ich seemed that of malevolence to de- 

‘‘T u he / che ™ e - Fir *t, there came a 
backward spring.” The ice and snow re¬ 
mained on the ground until late in April 
? ° me f ectl ° ns llntil May, and then 

flnnrk v u eW ^ a -j S ’ caus mg disastrous 
Hoods which prevented seeding. Then, after 


The Farmer’s Railroad 65 

seeding, cold rains fell, and much of the 
wheat was chilled and required replanting, 
which in some cases with farmers of small 
means was impossible, and the result was 
that the wheat came up more than a month 
behind over the whole Red River Valley. 
Then there came several terrific hail-storms, 
which almost wholly wiped out the crops in 
several townships in one county and which 
cut a swath through many other sections. 
The result was that farmers failed to pay 
their subscriptions for stock in the railroad, 
and soon the news was carried over the 
whole Northwest that the farmers, the class 
to be chiefly benefited by the road, were de¬ 
serting it. 

Upon the top of this news came a gigantic 
and crushing blow to Minds at the meeting 
of the directors that summer at Brighton, at 
which his scheme for raising the money 
was rejected and outvoted and he himself 
was practically removed from the position 
of chief. There had been rumors during 
the early summer that there was in the di¬ 
rectorate som£ jealousy of Minds, and it 
was said that the inspiration came from St. 


66 


Stories from McClure’j 


Paul, but no fear was felt by Minds or any 
of Ins nearest friends of any formidable re- 
vo . The action of the directors must, 
therefore, have been a great shock to his 
reason and hopes; but he gave no sign. He 
spent most of his time at Brighton, super- 

wT g l the , sur , veys and th e grading, which 
had already begun. At times he visited 
his home at Hanning, and when asked about 

smile 0 ” d Th°e n rr f a f airs > simply said with a 
smile, The directors think they can raise 

eaS ' e n tha " I , Can raise ^,000, 

and do it” h-T t0 d ° ‘ S t0 let them tf y 
nd do it. His hopes were high that when 

the annual meeting of the road was held in 

Januray he would be restored. 

M^Hc ryth / ng 1 ?° ke i i most auspicious for 

Ktn W ? e " u he directors assembled at 
Brighton for the annual meeting. The plan 

which they had adopted had proved a fai" 
ure, everywhere was confidence in Minds 

t a han th t e he C v 0n ^ 0n ° f . the f “ ™s better 
than they had anticipated, which with 

higher prices for their wheat made the 

railroad R„t° ne h t0 inter «t in the 

railroad. But when the meeting began, his 


The Farmer’s Railroad 


67 


enemies were seen to be in full control, and 
he was retired from the presidency and 
every vestige of power was taken away 
from him. 

Minds was silent, and for the first time 
dejected, after this overwhelming verdict. 
But he remained at Brighton for the rest 
of that winter, and the last heard from him 
was that he had reentered the evangelist 
field, which he had tried when a boy, and 
was holding great and thrilling revival meet¬ 
ings near Brighton, until a few days ago the 
newspapers contained this despatch: 

“ Daniel Minds, the Farmer’s Railroad 
projector, was to-day adjudged insane, and 
removed to the State Hospital for the In¬ 
sane. Last Monday he announced that 
Christ would come in six days and he had 
been called to warn people of the event. He 
is in a terrible physical condition, unable to 
sleep, and talks incessantly on almost every 
subject. Unless he gets relief soon he can¬ 
not live long.” 

And the Farmer’s Railroad was not built. 
















A Million Dollar Freight 

Train 





A MILLION DOLLAR 
FREIGHT TRAIN 


THE STOR Y OF A YO UNG ENGINEER 
ON HIS FIRST R UN 

By Frank H. Spearman 

I T was the second month of the strike, 
and not a pound of freight had been 
removed. Things did look smoky on 
the West End. The General Super¬ 
intendent happened to be with us when the 
news came. “ You can’t handle it, boys,” 
said he nervously. “ What you’d better do 
is to turn it over to the Columbian Pacific.” 

Our contracting freight agent on the 
Coast at that time was a fellow so erratic 
that he was nicknamed “ Crazy-horse.” 
Right in the midst of the strike Crazy-horse 
wired that he had secured a big shipment 
7i 



72 Stories from McClure’s 

for New York. We were paralyzed. We 
had no engineers, no firemen, and no motive 
power to speak of. The strikers were pound¬ 
ing our men, wrecking our trains, and giv¬ 
ing us the worst of it generally; that is, when 
we couldn’t give it to them. Why the fel¬ 
low displayed his activity at that particular 
juncture still remains a mystery. Perhaps 
he had a grudge against the road; if so, he 
took an artful revenge. Everybody on the 
system with ordinary railroad sense knew 
that our struggle was to keep clean of 
freight business until we got rid of our 
strike. Anything valuable or perishable was 
especially unwelcome. But the stuff was 
docked, and loaded, and consigned in our 
care before we knew it. After that, a refusal 
to carry it would be like hoisting the white 
flag; and that is something which never yet 
flew over the West End. 

Turn it over to the Columbian,” said 
the General Superintendent; but the General 
Superintendent n °t looked up to on our 
division. He hadn’t enough sand. Our 
head was a fighter, and he gave tone to everv 
man under him. “ No,” he thundered, bring- 


A Million Dollar Freight Train 73 

ing down his fist. "Not in a thousand 
years. Well move it ourselves. Wire 
Montgomery [the General Manager] that 
we will take care of it. And wire him to 
hre Crazy-horse—and to do it right off.” 
And before the silk was turned over to us 
Crazy-horse was looking for another job. It 
is the only case on record where a freight 
hustler was discharged for getting business. 

there were twelve carloads; it was in¬ 
sured for $85,000 a car; you can figure how 
tar the title is wrong, but you never can 
estimate the worry the stuff gave us. It 
looked as big as twelve million dollars' 
worth. In fact, one scrub car-tink, with the 
glory of the West End at heart, had a fight 
over the amount with a skeptical hostler. He 
maintained that the actual money value was 
a hundred and twenty millions; but I give 
you the figures just as they went over the 
wire, and they are right. 

What bothered us most was that the 
strikers had the tip almost as soon as we 
had it. Having friends on every road in the 
country, they knew as much about our busi¬ 
ness as we ourselves. The minute it was 


74 


Stories front McClure’s 


announced that we should move the silk, 
they were after us. It was a defiance; a last 
one. If we could move freight—for we 
were already moving passengers after a 
fashion—the strike might be well accounted 
beaten. 

Stewart, the leader of the local contin¬ 
gent, together with his followers, got after 
me at once. “You don’t show much sense, 
Reed,” said he. “You fellowshere are break¬ 
ing your necks to get things moving, and 
when this strike’s over, if our boys ask for 
your discharge, they’ll get it. This road 
can’t run without our engineers. We’re 
going to beat you. If you dare try to move 
this silk, we’ll have your scalp when it’s over. 
You’ll never get your silk to Zanesville, I’ll 
promise you that. And if you ditch it and 
make a million-dollar loss, you’ll get let out 
anyway, my buck.” 

“ I’m here to obey orders, Stewart,” said 
I. What was the use of more? I felt un¬ 
comfortable ; but we had determined to move 
the silk; there was no more to be said. 

When I went over to the round-house and 
told Neighbor the decision, he said never a 






A Million Dollar Freight Train 75 

word; but he looked a great deal. Neigh¬ 
bor V* as k was *° su Ppty the motive power. 
All that we had, uncrippled, was in the pas¬ 
senger service, because passengers should be 
taken care of first of all. In order to win 
a strike, you must have public opinion on 
your side. 

“Nevertheless, Neighbor,” said I, after 
we had talked a while, “ we must move the 
silk also.” 

Neighbor studied; then he roared at his 
foreman. “ Send Bartholomew Mullen here.” 
He spoke with a decision that made me think 
the business was done. I had never hap¬ 
pened, it is true, to hear of Bartholomew 
Mullen in the department of motive power; 
but the impression the name gave me was of 
a monstrous fellow, big as Neighbor, or old 
man Sankey, or Dad Hamilton. “ I’ll put 
Bartholomew ahead of it,” said Neighbor 
tightly. & 

I saw a boy walk into the office. “ Mr. 
Garten said you wanted me sir,“ said he, 
addressing the Master Mechanic. 

I do, Bartholomew,” responded Neigh¬ 
bor. 



76 


Stories from McClure’s 


J 


The figure in my mind’s eye shrunk in a 
twinkling. Then it occurred to me that it 
must be this boy’s father who was wanted. 

“ You have been begging for a chance to 
take out an engine, Bartholomew,” began 
Neighbor coldly; and I knew it was on. 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ You want to get killed, Bartholomew.” 

Bartholomew smiled as if the idea was not 
altogether displeasing. 

“ How would you like to go pilot to-mor¬ 
row for McCurdy? You to take the 44 and 
run as first Seventy-eight. McCurdy will 
run as second Seventy-eight.” 

“ I know I could run an engine all right,” 
ventured Bartholomew, as if Neighbor were 
the only one taking the chances in giving 
him an engine. “ I know the track from 
here to Zanesville. I helped McNeff fire one 
week.” 

“ Then go home, and go to bed; and be 
over here at six o’clock to-morrow morning. 
And sleep sound, for it may be your last 
chance.” 

It was plain that the Master Mechanic 
hated to do it; it was simply sheer neces- 




77 


A Million Dollar Freight Train 


sky. “ He’s a wiper,” mused Neighbor as 
Bartholomew walked springily away. “ I 
took him in here sweeping two years ago. 

be firing now, but the union 
held him back; that’s why he don’t like them. 

a b° ut an engine now than 
half the lodge They’d better have let him 
in, said the Master Mechanic grimly “ He 
may be the means of breaking their backs 
ye . If 1 give him an engine and he runs it, 
111 never take him off, union or no union, 
strike or no strike.” 


„ How old is that boy,” I asked. 

Eighteen; and never a kith or a kin that 
I know of. Bartholomew Mullen,” mused 
Neighbor as the slight figure moved across 
tke flat, big name—small boy. Well, Bar¬ 
tholomew, you’ll know something more by 
to-morrow night about running an engine 
or a whole lot less: that’s as it happens! 
If he gets killed, it’s your fault, Reed.” 

He meant that I was calling on him for 
men when he couldn’t supply them. 

“ I heard once,” he went on, “ about a 
fellow named Bartholomew being mixed up 
m a massacree. But I take it he must have 



78 


Stories from McClure’s 


been an older man than our Bartholomew— 
nor his other name wasn’t Mullen, neither. 
I disremember just what it was; but it wasn’t 
Mullen.” 

“ Well, don’t say I want to get the boy 
killed, Neighbor,” I protested. “ I’ve got 
plenty to answer for. I’m here to run trains 
—when there are any to run; that’s murder 
enough for me. You needn’t send Bartholo¬ 
mew out on my account.” 

“ Give him a slow schedule, and I’ll give 
him orders to jump early; that’s all we can 
do. If the strikers don’t ditch him, he’ll 
get through somehow.” 

It stuck in my crop—the idea of putting 
that boy on a pilot engine to take all the 
dangers ahead of that particular train; but 
I had a good deal else to think of besides. 
From the minute the silk got into the Mc¬ 
Cloud yards, we posted double guards 
around. About twelve o’clock that night we 
held a council of war, which ended in our 
running the train into the out freight-house. 
The result was that by morning we had a 
new train made up. It consisted of fourteen 
refrigerator cars loaded with oranges which 



A Million Dollar Freight Train jg 

had come in mysteriously the night before. 
It was announced that the silk would be 
held for the present and the oranges rushed 
through at once. Bright and early the re¬ 
frigerator train was run down to the ice¬ 
houses, and twenty men were put to work 
icing the oranges. At seven o’clock, McCurdy 
pulled in the local passenger with engine 
105. Our plan was to cancel the local and 
run him right out with the oranges. When 
he got in, he reported that the 105 had 
sprung a tire; this threw us out entirely. 
There was a hurried conference in the round¬ 
house. 

“ What can you do? ” asked the Superin¬ 
tendent in desperation. 

“ There’s only one thing I can do. Put 
Bartholomew Mullen on it with the 44, and 
put McCurdy to bed for Number Two to¬ 
night,” responded Neighbor. 

We were running first in first out; but we 
took care always to have somebody for One 
and Two who at least knew an injector from 
an air-pump. 

It was eight o’clock. I looked into the 
locomotive stalls. The first—the only—man 





8o 


Stories front McClure’s 


in sight was Bartholomew Mullen, He was 
very busy polishing the 44. He had good j 
steam on her, and the old tub was wheezing 
away as if she had the asthma. The 44 was | 
old; she was homely; she was rickety; but 
Bartholomew Mullen wiped her battered 
nose as deferentially as if she had been a 
spick-span, spider-driver, tail-truck mail- 
racer. She wasn’t much—the 44. But in 
those days Bartholomew wasn’t much: and 
the 44 was Bartholomew’s. 

“ How is she steaming, Bartholomew ? ” 

I sang out; he was right in the middle of 
her. Looking up, he fingered his waste 
modestly and blushed through a dab of 
crude petroleum over his eye. “ Hundred | 
and thirty pounds, sir. She’s a terrible free 
steamer, the old 44. I’m all ready to run 
her out.” 

“ Who’s marked up to fire for you. Bar¬ 
tholomew ? ” ! 

Bartholomew Mullen looked at me frater¬ 
nally. “ Neighbor couldn’t give me anybody 
but a wiper, sir,” said Bartholomew, in a 
sort of a wouldn’t-that-kill-you tone. 

The unconscious arrogance of the boy 




A Million Dollar Freight Train 


81 


quite knocked me: so soon had honors 
changed his point of view. Last night a de¬ 
spised wiper; at daybreak, an engineer; and 
his nose in the air at the idea of taking on 
a wiper for fireman. And all so innocent. 

“ Would you object, Bartholomew/’ I sug¬ 
gested gently, “to a train-master for fire¬ 
man ? ” 

“ I don’t—think so, sir.” 

“ Thank you; because I am going down to 
Zanesville this morning myself, and I 
thought I’d ride with you. Is it all right? ” 

“ Oh, yes, sir—if Neighbor doesn’t care.” 

I smiled: he didn’t know whom Neighbor 
took orders from; but he thought, evidently, 
not from me. 

“ Then run her down to the oranges, Bar¬ 
tholomew, and couple on, and we’ll order 
ourselves out. See ? ” 

The 44 looked like a baby-carriage when 
we got her in front of the refrigerators. 
However, after the necessary preliminaries, 
we gave a very sporty toot, and pulled out. 
In a few minutes we were sailing down the 
valley. 

For fifty miles we bobbed along with our 



82 


Stories from McClure’s 


cargo of iced silk as easy as old shoes; for 
I need hardly explain that we had packed 
the silk into the refrigerators to confuse the 
strikers. The great risk was that they would 
try to ditch us. 

I was watching the track as a mouse would 
a cat, looking every minute for trouble. We 
cleared the gumbo cut west of the Beaver 
at a pretty good clip, in order to make the 
grade on the other side. The bridge there 
is hidden in summer by a grove of black¬ 
berries. I had just pulled open to cool her a 
bit when I noticed how high the back-water 
was on each side of the track. Suddenly I 
felt the fill going soft under the drivers; felt 
the 44 wobble and slew. Bartholomew shut 
off hard, and threw the air as I sprang to 
the window. The peaceful little creek ahead 
looked as angry as the Platte in April water, 
and the bottoms were a lake. 

Somewhere up the vallev there had been 
a cloudburst, for overhead the sun was 
bright. The Beaver was roaring over its 
banks, and the bridge was out. Bartholo¬ 
mew screamed for brakes; it looked as if we 
were against it—-and hard. A soft track to 




A Million Dollar Freight Train 83 

stop on; a torrent of storm-water ahead, and 
ten hundred thousand dollars’ worth of silk 
behind, not to mention equipment. 

I yelled at Bartholomew, and motioned for 
him to jump; my conscience is clear on that 
point. The 44 was stumbling along, trying 
like a drunken man to hang to the rotten 
track. 

“ Bartholomew! ” I yelled; but he was 
head out and looking back at his train while 
he jerked frantically at the air-lever. I un¬ 
derstood : the air wouldn’t work; it never 
will on those old tubs when you need it. The 
sweat pushed out on me. I was thinking of 
how much the silk would bring us after the 
bath in the Beaver. Bartholomew stuck to 
his levers like a man in a signal-tower, but 
every second brought us closer to open water. 
Watching him intent only on saving his first 
train—heedless of his life—I was actually 
ashamed to jump. While I hesitated he 
somehow got the brakes to set; the old 44 
bucked like a bronco. 

It wasn’t too soon. She checked her train 
nobly at the last, but I saw nothing could 
keep her from the drink. I gave Bartholo- 


8 4 


Stories from McClure’s 


mew a terrific slap, and again I yelled; then 
turning to the gangway, I dropped into the 
soft mud on my side: the 44 hung low, and 
it was easy lighting. 

Bartholomew sprang from his seat a sec¬ 
ond later; but his blouse caught in the teeth 
of the quadrant. He stooped quick as 
thought, and peeled the thing over his head. 
1 hen he was caught fast by the wristbands, 
and the ponies of the 44 tipped over the 
broken abutment. Pull as he would he 
couldn t get free. The pilot dipped into the 
torrent slowly. But losing her balance, the 
44 kicked her heels into the air like lightning 
and shot with a frightened wheeze plump 
into the creek, dragging her engineer with 


The head car stopped on the brink. Run¬ 
ning across the track, I looked for Bartholo¬ 
mew. He wasn’t there; I knew he must 
have gone down with his engine. Throwing 
off my gloves, I dived, just as I stood, close 
to the tender, which hung half submerged. I 
am a good bit of a fish under water, but no 
self-respecting fish would be caught in that 
yellow mud. I realized, too, the instant I 








A Million Dollar Freight Train 


85 


struck the water, that I should have dived on 
the upstream side. The current took me 
away whirling; when I came up for air, I 
was fifty feet below the pier. I scrambled 
out, feeling it was all up with Bartholomew; 
but to my amazement, as I shook my eyes 
open the train crew were running forward, 
and there stood Bartholomew on the track 
above me, looking at the refrigerators. 
When I got to him, he explained how he was 
dragged under and had to tear the sleeves 
out of his blouse under water to get free. 

The surprise is how little fuss men make 
about such things when they are busy. It 
took only five minutes for the conductor to 
hunt up a coil of wire and a sounder for me, 
and by the time he got forward with it, Bar¬ 
tholomew was half-way up a telegraph pole 
to help me cut in on a live wire. Fast as I 
could, I rigged a pony, and began calling the 
McCloud despatcher. It was rocky sending, 
but after no end of pounding, I got him and 
gave orders for the wrecking gang, and for 
one more of Neighbor’s rapidly decreasing 
supply of locomotives. 

Bartholomew, sitting on a strip of fence 


86 


Stories from McClure’s 


which still rose above the water, looked for¬ 
lorn. To lose in the Beaver the first engine 
he ever handled was tough, and he was evi 
dently speculating on his chances of ever 
getting another. If there weren’t tears in his 
eyes, there was storm-water certainly. But 
after the relief engine had pulled what was 
left of us back six miles to a siding, I made 
it my first business to explain to Neighbor, 
who was nearly beside himself, that Bar¬ 
tholomew not only was not at fault, but tl 
byhis nerve he had actually saved the train, 

“I’ll tell you, Neighbor,” I suggested, 
when we got straightened around. “ Give 
us the 109 to go ahead as pilot, and run her 
around the river division with Foley and the 
216.” 

“ What’ll. you do with Number Six? ” 
growled Neighbor. Six was the local pas¬ 
senger west. 

“ Annul it west of McCloud,” said I in¬ 
stantly. “We’ve got this silk on our hands 
now, and I d move it if it tied up even pas- 
senger train on the division. If we can i/et 
the stuff through, it will practically b< he 
strike. If we fail, it will beat the company.” 



A Million Dollar Freight Train 87 

By the time we had backed to Newhall 
Junction, Neighbor had made up his mind 
my way. Mullen and I climbed into the 109. 
and Foley, with the 216, and none too good a 
grace, coupled on to the silk, and flying red 
signals, we started again for Zanesville over 
the river division. 

Foley w.as always full of mischief. He 
had a better engine than ours, and he took 
great satisfaction the rest of the afternoon 
in crowding us. Every mile of the way he 
was on our heels. I was throwing the coal, 
and have reason to remember. It was after 
dark when we reached the Beverly Hill, and 
we took it at a lively pace. The strikers 
were not on our minds then; it was Foley 
who bothered. 

When the long parallel steel lines of the 
upper yards spread before us, flashing under 
the arc lights, we were away above yard 
speed. Running a locomotive into one of 
thos big yards is like shooting a rapid in 
a canoe. There is a bewildering maze of 
tracks lighted by red and green lamps, 
hich must be watched the closest to keep 
i 1 of rouble. The hazards are multiplied 


88 


Stories from, McClure’s 


the minute you pass the throat, and a yard 
wreck is a dreadful tangle; it makes every¬ 
body from road-master to flagman furious, 
and not even Bartholomew wanted to face 
an inquiry on a yard wreck. On the other 
hand, he couldn’t afford to be caught by 
Foley, who was chasing him out of pure 
caprice. 

I saw the boy holding the throttle at a 
half and fingering the air anxiously as we 
jumped over the frogs; but the roughest 
riding on track so far beats the ties as a 
cushion, that when the 109 suddenly stuck 
her paws through an open switch we bounced 
against the roof of the cab like foot-balls. 

I grabbed a brace with one hand, and with 
the other reached instinctively across to Bar¬ 
tholomew’s side to seize the throttle. But 
as I tried to shut him off, he jerked it wide 
open in spite of me, and turned with lierht- 
nmg in his eye. “ No! ” he cried, and his 
voice rang hard. The 109 took the tremen¬ 
dous shove at her back, and leaped like a 
brightened horse. Away we went across the 
yard, through the cinders, and over the ties * 
my teeth have never been the same since! 



A Million Dollar Freight Train 89 

I don’t belong on an engine, anyway, and 
since then I have kept off. At the moment, 
I was convinced that the strain had been too 
much, that Bartholomew was stark crazy. 
He sat clinging like a lobster to his levers 
and bouncing clear to the roof. 

But his strategy was dawning on me; in 
fact, he was pounding it into me. Even the 
shock and scare of leaving the track and 
tearing up the yard had not driven from 
Bartholomew’s noddle the most important 
feature of our situation, which was, above 
everything, to keep out of the way of the silk 
train. 

I felt every moment more mortified at my 
attempt to shut him off. I had done the 
trick of the woman who grabs the reins. It 
was even better to tear up the yard than to 
stop for Foley to smash into and scatter the 
silk over the coal chutes. Bartholomew’s 
decision was one of the traits which make 
the runner: instant perception coupled to 
instant resolve. The ordinary dub thinks 
what he should have done to avoid disaster 
after it is all over; Bartholomew thought 
before. 


9 o 


Stories from McClure’s 


On we bumped, across frogs, through 
switches, over splits, and into target rods, ' 
when—and this is the miracle of it ail—the 
109 got her forefeet on a split switch, made 
a contact, and after a slew or two, like a 1 
bogged horse, she swung up sweet on the 
rails again, tender and all. Bartholomew 
shut off with an under cut that brought us 
up stuttering, and nailed her feet with the 
air right where she stood. We had left the 
track and ploughed a hundred feet across 
the yards and jumped on to another track. 

It is the only time I ever heard of its hap¬ 
pening anywhere, but I was on the engine 
with Bartholomew Mullen when it was done. 

Foley choked his train the instant he saw 
our hind lights bobbing. We climbed down, 
and ran back. He had stopped just where 
we should have stood if I had shut off. 

Bartholomew ran to the switch to examine 
it. The contact light (green) still burned 
like a false beacon; and lucky it did, for it 
showed that the switch had been tampered 
with and exonerated Bartholomew Mullen 
completely. The attempt of the strikers to 
spill the silk in the yards had only made the 






A Million Dollar Freight Train 


9 1 


reputation of a new engineer. Thirty min¬ 
utes later, the million-dollar train was turned 
over to the East End to wrestle with, and we 
breathed, all of us, a good bit easier. 

Bartholomew Mullen, now a passenger 
runner who ranks with Kennedy and Jack 
Moore and Foley and George Sinclair him¬ 
self, got a personal letter from the General 
Manager complimenting him on his pretty 
wit; and he was good enough to say nothing 
whatever about mine. 

We registered that night and went to sup¬ 
per together: Foley, Jackson, Bartholomew, 
and I. Afterwards we dropped into the de¬ 
spatched office. Something was coming 
from McCloud, but the operator to save his 
life couldn't catch it. I listened a minute; 
it was Neighbor. Now, Neighbor isn't great 
on despatching trains. He can make himself 
understood over the poles, but his sending is 
like a boy’s sawing wood—sort of uneven. 
However, though I am not much on running 
yards, I claim to be able to take the wildest 
ball that was ever thrown along the wire, 
and the chair was tendered me at once to 
catch Neighbor's extraordinary passes at the 


92 


Stories from McClure’s 


McCloud key. They came something- like 
this: 


To Opr. Tell Massacree ”—that was 
the word that stuck them all, and I could 
perceive that Neighbor was talking em¬ 
phatically. He had apparently forgotten 
-Bartholomew s last name, and was trying to 
connect with the one he had “ disremem- 

before * “ Tel1 Massacree,” 
repeated Neighbor, “that he is al-1-1 right, 
led hi-m I give him double mileage for to- 
day all the way through. And to-morrow he 
gets the 109 to keep.— Neighb-b-or. 




The Winning of the Trans¬ 
continental 
















THE WINNING OF THE 
TRANS-CONTINENTAL 

A STORY OF THE PACIFIC COAST 

By William McLeod Raine 

A S Jim Messiter walked down River 
Front Avenue and tasted the Salt 
Chinook which swept across the 
bay and mingled with the odor of 
the new sawn fir, it struck him with a sharp 
glow of pleasure that life had never before 
, held so much of interest for him. He 
looked over the town which he had done so 
much to make, and it seemed to him that 
his work was good. The distinguishing 
features of the town were its rawness and 
rustle, but to Jim it had the germ of per¬ 
fection. Its very newness and crudeness 
were proof of its vitality and quick life. 
It was typical of the West—pushing, self- 

95 


9 6 


Stories from McClure’s 


assertive, public-spirited. Fortunes were 
to be made and lost in a month. Already 
it was almost cosmopolitan in its citizens, 
and it was just six months old. 

Surely Messiter liked the town no less 
because it liked him. He had deserved welt 
of the town, had pushed it insistently in 
season and out of season, and had stood by 
it manfully when the rival “ city ” across the 
bay had been backed by a certain coast rail¬ 
road company and had almost beaten Wil- 
lapa Bend out of existence. He had been 
the spokesman of the delegation which had 
waited on the president and board of direc¬ 
tors of the great Trans-Continental Railroad 
to show them why Willapa Bend should be 
the terminus of their line/ and he had done 
his work so well that he had shaken the 
president s already formed verdict in favor 
of Inverness When the committee filed into 
the room, Willapa Bend had not one chance 
in a thousand; but before they left, Messiter 
knew that the matter would not be decided 
without a more thorough investigation, 
partly on acount of what he had done for 
the town and partly because of his native 






The Winning of the Trans-Continental 97 

qualifications, the Board of Trade had asked 
him to stand for the nomination for State 
senator. 

Jim viewed the town very much as a 
young father views his first-born. Never 
was such a town, in Jim’s opinion. Every 
evidence of young and vigorous activity 
filled him with a sense of personal pride and 
pleasure. 

Up the river, a mile above him, the giant 
dredger “ Anaconda ” was working like a 
thing alive, tearing from the river bottom 
the accumulated sand and mud of ages and 
dropping it on flatboats, which were towed 
by wheezy little tugs across , the tide flats to 
deposit their loads on the flats and thereby 
snatch from the sea another bit of ground 
valuable for mills and warehouses. At the 
water’s edge great pile-drivers pounded away 
with a steady thump—thump—thump on the 
cedar posts which were to form the ground¬ 
work for a big ocean wharf. A hundred 
men were at work on the “ Willapa,” a hun- 
dred-thousand-dollar hotel in process of erec¬ 
tion, and from it drifted the busy hum of 
hammer and saw. Behind the hotel a big 


9 8 


Stories from McClure’s 


hill was succumbing to hydraulic pressure, 
and a steady stream of mud and water poured 
down into the tide flats below. 

All around him and up the street, which 
ran parallel with the river, houses, stores, 
hotels, and warehouses were going up as fast 
as their owners could send them. Some hun¬ 
dred yards below, two saw-mills were run¬ 
ning night and day in a vain attempt to 
supply the needs of the growing town. Be¬ 
low the mills, a salmon-canning factory was 
already in operation. Some dories just in 
were unloading at the factory wharf; a ship 
floating the Union Jack was coming into the 
harbor two miles out, while a Dutch lumber 
schooner passed her on the way out to sea. 

“ k T n Was * n tbe mi <*st of its first 
boom, but every man, woman, and child 
there took pride in it, and believed loyally 

“ e ^. wn was to be a big city in the near 
tuture. Men were passing to and fro quietly, 
uymg and selling in a business-like way. 
-Not a man who was not busy; not one who 
did not believe he was on the high road to 
fortune; everywhere rustle, life, and hope* 
a new country in the making. At least that 





The Winning of the Trans-Continental 99 

was how Messiter saw it as he turned into 
the offices of the company, and his opinion 
went for a good deal among people who knew 
him. 

He was a well-set-up young fellow, and 
worth a second look, not because he was 
pretty or handsome—for he was neither. His 
mouth was too large, and his features were 
altogether too irregular. The thing that im¬ 
pressed a stranger was his clean-blooded 
vitality. He showed alertness and vigor in 
every movement of his healthy, athletic body. 
There was something about the lines of his 
mouth and the expression of his shrewd, 
humorous eyes that showed determination 
and fertility of resource. Altogether, the 
kind of fellow who is never more dangerous 
than when he is apparently beaten. 

On his desk were a dozen letters from 
people in the East who wanted to know all 
about Willapa Bend, from the average sum¬ 
mer temperature to the altitude of the bay 
at that point. But Jim Messiter tossed these 
aside and settled himself expectantly to 
read a letter in a square envelope bearing 
the monogram “ E. D.” on the seal. One 

L«?C. 


IOO 


Stories from McClure’s 


paragraph he read over several times. Like 
its writer, it was as direct and frank as a 
man: 


J/ " s . cem t0 P u t the case brutally, you 
will pardon me, and will remember that you 
have insisted on my speaking frankly. I do 
not see how the situation has changed since I 
answered you before. I cannot blip feeling 
that you deliberately ran away from your 
lesponsibihties and duties when you buried 

yoursdf m the West . You had J ho „“ 

“' er „ W11 ^ting you here, and you threw it 

to li t mn ' dmng : 1 do not see an y reason 
to modify my previous judgment in regard 

to your present course. Leaving outen- 

‘‘ boom m ° raIity ° f speculating h, 
boom towns cannot be regarded as a 
serious business in life, worthf of a man 

f h .° f /.^opportunities that you hTve 
had and still have. So far as I in judge 

tfce phll °*°P h .y of life seems to be abom 
the same that it used to be when you were 

hu^e jfofe. a " d the ” y ° U re ^ arded * -" 





The Winning of the Trans-Continental ioi 

Believe me, I do not intend to hurt you 
needlessly, but frankness is better for us 
both, as you say. Unless you can convince 
me that you are honestly and seriously grap¬ 
pling with the work of life, my resolution 
must remain unchanged. If you can show 
me I am mistaken, none of your friends will 
be so quick to rejoice with you as I. 

Sincerely, 

Edith Delafield. 

Messiter strolled to the door, an anxious, 
harassed look on his square-jawed, boyish 
face. Again his eye wandered over the 
place, and again it seemed to him that he 
was doing something worth while. He was 
in the thick of life—in the heart of a big 
thing, he admitted to himself impartially, 
with an air of satisfaction. He had an 
American’s appreciation of the man who 
does things, and he did not attempt to deny 
to himself that he was proud of what he was 
doing. He had got to make Edith see it in 
that way, even if he had to go to New York 
to do so. Through the lines of the letter he 


102 


Stories from McClure’s 


could read the admission that she cared for 
him, if only her conscience would approve 
of him and his course of life. 

. -^- e sat down at his desk, and wrote an 
immediate answer. First he told her of 
what he was doing and of the busy life 
around him. Then he read over what he 
had written, and proceeded to justify him¬ 
self. In conclusion he wrote: 

The world is not bounded by the State 
lines of New York, and a man can get as 
much work to do in the West as he can well 
handle, notwithstanding the prevailing im¬ 
pression in the Empire State that a resident 
of the West is practically out of the world. 

I certainly am not “ booming ” this town 
for the money there is to be made in fleecing 
innocent buyers. You know me better than 
that. If I were following the career you 
suggest for me, I should be at the present 
time a member of a firm of corporation 
lawyers. To open up a new and rich coun¬ 
try is a more serviceable work in my opinion, 
the country out here is rough and raw, 
but it contains wonderful possibilities, and I 






The Winning of the Trans-Continental 103 

do not think that the pioneers who are giving 
themselves to its development can be said to 
be skulkers in life’s battle. I believe in this 
country and this town. I intend to stay 
here, and I am not trying to induce working 
people to invest their money in what I know 
to be a cheat and a lie. 

I cannot hope to make you feel about 
this as I who am in the thick of it do; but if 
you could see the progress we have made, 
the tide flats that have been reclaimed, the 
forests that have been cleared, and the homes 
that are being built, I feel sure that you 
would not think it useless and futile. It is, 
of course, rank, material progress; but may 
it not also be that we are founding another 
great State for the nation ? 

I have been asked to stand for the State 
senate. For the next week we shall be 
straining every nerve to get the terminus of 
the Trans-Continental for our town. What¬ 
ever else I am doing, I am not trifling. It 
is the work I am best fitted for. Yet if I 
do not get one little girl in New York to be¬ 
lieve in it and me- 

You have got to believe in me and the 




104 


Stories from McClure’s 


town, for we are both tremendously in 
earnest. I cannot leave my work now, but 
may I not come later, say next month? 
May I not, dear? j AMES Messiter _ 


He was just finishing 1 the address when 
two visitors dropped into the office. One of 
them was the man who wanted to be gover¬ 
nor. He introduced his companion as “ Mr. 
Roberts, looking for a site for some mills, 
i. nought he ought to see your town, Mr. 
Messiter. 


the only town needs to see A 
lumberman has a better chance here than in 
any other place in the State, and that means 
in the world/’ retorted Messiter promptly 
and as a matter of course. 

“Aren’t you too modest about your 
town? asked the politician dryly. Through- 
out the day he continued to speak of Willapa 
Bend as your town,” and Messiter accepted 
the compliment as an evidence of the politi¬ 
cian s discernment. P 

Presently, as they bowled over the planked 
roads in a surrey, Messiter found himself 
reeling out by the yard facts, figures, and 




The Winning of the Trans-Continental 105 

prophecies as to the town and surrounding' 
country. The politician occasionally helped 
him out with a remark, for he wanted Mes- 
siter s help in a political way at the coming 
convention; but the mill-owner smoked his 
cigar stolidly, except for an occasional sharp, 
pertinent question. 

I tell you, sir, this town is bound to 
grow; nothing can keep it back. The prop¬ 
osition is just this: we have practically the 
only good harbor between ’Frisco and Puget 
Sound. Why, sir, the ‘ City of Panama ’ got 
caught in that February storm just at the 
mouth of the Columbia River; tried to cross 
the bar, and was nearly beaten to pieces; 
beat her way up to the bay here, and came 
in handy as you please. No, sir, Portland 
isn’t in it as a seaport town. Then we tap 
one of the richest lumber districts in the 
world—and practically untouched. The lum¬ 
ber is easy of access, and can be floated 
down the river. You saw it right on the 
water’s edge, load it from your own wharves, 
and send it all over the world. The supply 
of lumber is practically unlimited, too. I 
don’t need to talk to you about the salmon 


io6 Stories from McClure’s 

industry or our farming resources, because 
they talk for themselves. And the cli¬ 
mate-” 

“ I am not coming for my health/’ laughed 
Roberts. Then he flicked the ashes from his 
cigar and said tentatively: “ I think of lo¬ 
cating at Inverness.” 

“ Inverness! Well, if you’re looking for 
a quiet, healthful sort of sanitarium, where 
your nerves will get a chance to rest, that’s 
the place for you. It’s dead—dead and 
buried. The only live things they have 
there are mills and promoters.” 

Roberts eyed him with an amused smile j 
as he said slowly: “ Willapa Bend’s got a 
few promoters too.” 

Messiter laughed quietly at the hit. “ Oh, 
yes, I’m a promoter all right; but it hap¬ 
pens I’ve got something to promote. This 
town will be a city of 50,000 inhabitants in 
five years. I may be a promoter, but I am 
the kind that means to stay by the town. 
Generally speaking, the difference between 
us and Inverness is that they believe in their 
town because they are pushing it, and we 
push ours because we believe in it.” 







The Winning of the Trans-Continental io; 

“ Well, if I decide to locate here I hope 
your town will grow,” said Roberts doubt¬ 
fully. 

1 ^ don t think there is any doubt about 
that,” answered Messiter. “ Inverness is go- 
ing to grow, too, but nothing like as fast 
as Willapa Bend. If I told you what I really 
thought, I should say one hundred thousand 
would be about our size in five years.” 

“ That’s the advantage of having an imag¬ 
ination. You can prophesy without being 
hampered by facts,” said the other dryly. 

That’s all right. The facts are going to 
justify me. You wait and see. Six months 
ago this town consisted of one lone cabin 
and a cow-path leading to it through the 
timber. That was the whole outfit. You 
see it now—two saw-mills, canning factory, 
ten-thousand-dollar school projected, hun¬ 
dred-thousand hotel being built, lots any¬ 
where from two hundred to a thousand 
apiece. If we can do that in six months, 
what can we do in ten years ? ” 

“ Well! I confess I like the outlook. I 
believe you’ll make a town out of it. But I 
want to go slow. I’ve seen boom towns 


108 Stories from McClure's 

before. They’re all right for the promoter, 
but they’re pretty rough on the settler.” 

“ I hope you are not going to liken us to 
those mushroom prairie towns on the rain¬ 
less desert. This Washington immigration 
movement has come to stay. We’ve got here 
the finest country on the face of God’s green 
earth, and people have just begun to find it 
out. The development of Washington has 
just started, and we are in on the ground 
floor. I think Willapa Bend and Seattle are 
going to be the cities on the northern coast. 
I’ve got a big slice in this town, and I don’t 
mind admitting that I think I’m a rich man, 
as men go in the West. All I have got 
to do is to hold on and rustle. It takes two 
things to make a town—one is natural ad¬ 
vantages, and the other is git-up-and-git, 
and we have got them both.” 

They were back in the office by this time, 
and the President of theWillapa Bend Land 
and Development Company leaned forward I 
persuasively, and touched the other man’s 
knee with his lead pencil. 

See here, Mr. Roberts, I don’t usually 
talk about private affairs, but I’ll tell you 





The Winning of the Trans-Continental 109 

one thing: our company has taken in more 
than twelve hundred dollars a day this sum¬ 
mer on an average—in cash, that is.” 

That s more apt to mean inflated values 
than legitimate development. I’d rather hear 
that the Trans-Continental was coming this 
way.” 

The two men looked at each other for a 
moment, and both smiled a little. They had 
got to the controlling lever at last. Presi¬ 
dent Eaton of the Trans-Continental was 
married to a sister of Roberts, and it was 
beyond doubt that the latter would locate in 
the town selected by the railroad company 
for its terminus. What Messiter hoped for 
was that the mill-owner would be-impressed 
with the advantages of Willapa Bend and 
throw the weight of his influence in favor of 
that town. Presently Messiter asked boldly: 

“ Which way is the Trans-Continental go¬ 
ing?” 

I don’t think the matter is officially de¬ 
cided,” answered Roberts cautiously, “ but 
I guess Inverness has it pretty well cor¬ 
ralled.” 

Messiter knew quite well that at present 


IIO 


Stories from McClure’s 


Inverness was a better town than Willapa 
Bend. It was a larger, older town, and to 
the Michigan man, fresh from the neat 
towns of his own State, presented a much 
more attractive appearance than Willapa 
Bend, rich in charred stumps and blackened 
hillsides where the forest fires had run not 
three months before. To him the whole 
town looked terribly bleak and crude. But 
Messiter saw it with the eyes of faith, and 
he meant that the other man should also see 
it so. Messiter’s point of view was that 
there ought to be a good town here; there¬ 
fore it was his business to make one. He 
reopened the attack from another side. 

“ Inverness is an older town than this, and 
it looks a good deal prettier just now. It's 
getting past the stump age. They are get¬ 
ting the timber cleared out of there pretty 
fast. But that isn’t what you want, I take 
it. You are after a place that has a big 
stumpage yet.” 

The Michigan man smiled a little in ap¬ 
preciation of the pun, and said, “ There’s lots 
of timber round Inverness yet.” 

“ Yes, there is a lot of timber there, but ; 




The Winning of the Trans-Continental m 

there are a dozen big mills, and they either 
own or have an option on the most desirable 
timber lands. If you go there, you take your 
chances, and they won’t be of the best, be¬ 
cause you are last in the field.” 

It was Messiter’s one valid point, and he 
knew it had scored. The mill man smoked 
in silence for a minute before he spoke again. 
“And if I come here?” 

If you come here you are practically 
first in the field. I don’t count these two 
mills already here, because they are small, 
single-barreled affairs, running without 
much capital. There is plenty of timber all 
round here. What’s the matter with your 
sending agents out to buy up big quantities 
of the most desirable timber land ? You can 
get it almost at your own price now.” 

Messiter waited for the other to speak; 
but as he did not appear to intend to make 
a beginning, Jim continued: 

“ There is a lot of timber yet in the Sound 
country, but they have to go back from salt 
water to get it now. You will not find a 
place on earth where timber is handier than 
here. Assuming that we get the Trans-Con- 


112 


Stories from McClure’s 


tinental ”—Roberts smiled at the calmness 
with which Messiter assumed the point at 
issue—“ the bulk of your carrying will be 
done by water on account of the saving in 
expense. If ships from Sydney and Calcutta 
can drop in here and get their lumber, it does 
not stand to reason that they will try to 
make the difficult Straits passage into Puget 
Sound. Those tramp schooners aren’t tak¬ 
ing extra risks for the pleasure there is in 
adventure.” 

Again the president of the W. B. L. & D. 
Company had scored a hit. He knew the 
arguments that counted most with Roberts, 
and no matter how much he might diverge, 
he always came back in the end to the fine 
harbor and the abundance of timber within 
easy reach. 

When Roberts left for Seattle a few days 
later, Messiter knew that what influence the 
mill man had with his brother-in-law would 
be exerted in favor of Willapa Bend, but 
that whichever town was selected by the 
railroad company for its terminus would 
also be the town to get the large mills of 
the Michigan man. 




The Winning of the Trans-Continental 113 

It was two or three days later that Jim 
got his answer from New York. It bade him 
come to her after he had secured the Trans¬ 
continental for his town. 

“ Guess I bragged too much about what T 
was doing,” reflected Jim with a grin; “ but 
I’ve got to get the railroad now. if I have to 
hold up the president for it.” 

As events turned out, that was about what 
he did, though the president never suspected 
it. When Messiter got the telegram in 
cipher from Chicago announcing the depar- 
i ture of President Eaton for Inverness, he 
tossed it over to his partner with the re- 
| mark, “ Gay outlook, isn't it ? ” 

“ I should remark. Lets us out good and 
plenty,” answered Barry after he had read it. 

Messiter sat drumming with his fingers on 
the desk in front of him, a thoughtful frown 
on his abstracted face. He knew very well 
that, if Inverness got hold of the president 
first, it would be all up with his chances. At 
all cost, Eaton must be kept away from In¬ 
verness for a time. He thought about it 
quite a while, casting over various plans in 
his mind, and the immediate result of his 



Stories from McClure’s 


1 14 

thinking was that he rose with a smile on 
his face, and said easily, “ Oh, I don’t know. 
We’ll see about that. Send for Heaton, and 
let’s have a pow-wow.” 

There had been heavy rain in western 
Washington for weeks, and temporary, but 
vicious, rivers were running all over the land 
seeking what they could devour. It was one 
of these that ditched the express. Still, it 
is a little strange that the track had held for 
miles against a heavy pressure and should 
finally be swept away by a stream not six 
inches deep nor ten feet wide. That is, it 
would be strange if it were not so easily 
explainable. 

President Eaton felt the train slow down. 
Then it stopped with a jar that sent him for¬ 
ward heavily against the chair in front of 
him. He looked out of the window, and saw 
the train hands gathered round the engine. 
He divined at once that there had been a 
washout, and strolled forward to see the ex¬ 
tent of the damage. The engineer was ex¬ 
plaining excitedly how it had happened. “ I 
slowed down pretty slow at the curve here, 
knowin’ there was a bad place jest this side! 




The Winning of the Trans-Continental 115 

Soon as I got round, I seen there was a 
washout, and threw on the mergency brakes; 
but the’ wa’ant time to stop, and she waltzed 
right in.” 

The damage was very slight, but it would 
be impossible to proceed for many hours; in 
fact, until after the arrival of a wrecking 
crew. The railroad magnate was not in a 
particular hurry; still, he did not view with 
particular equanimity the prospect of a long 
wait in the dreary forest. At this oppor¬ 
tune moment, Jim Messiter and his surrey 
came in sight. The engineer saw him first, 
and deliberately winked at Jim. 

“ Most harmless accident you ever saw, 
Mr. Messiter,” suggested the conductor with 
a grin. 

Messiter was, of course, surprised to meet 
Mr. Eaton, but had a way to suggest out of 
the difficulty. “ Jump into my surrey, Mr. 
Eaton, and I’ll take you to Willapa Bend. 
You can look over our town, and to-morrow 
I’ll take you across the bay to Inverness in 
my launch.” 

The railroad president reflected that this 
would save him from making a special trip 


n6 Stories from McClure’s 

to Willapa Bend. He could take it in on his 
way to Inverness, and then he could tell 
Roberts that he had seen the town, which 
the latter gentleman had strongly urged him 
to do. 

The Belt Line passed fully eight miles 
from Willapa Bend, so that Messiter had 
plenty of time to size up his man before they 
reached town. During the past few weeks 
he had omitted no opportunity to find out all 
he could about the man who held the fate of 
Willapa Bend in his hand. As a result of 
his inquiries, he had learned that Eaton was 
a quiet, reserved man, who hated above all 
things fuss and pompous display. He 
dressed quietly, but well, and liked a good 
dinner as well as most men, though he some¬ 
times suffered from it afterward. 

Messiter knew too much to consign his 
guest to the tender mercies of any of the 
hotels in the young town. He drove straight 
to the office, where Barry met them and in¬ 
sisted on their dining with him. Mrs. Barry 
was a housekeeper among a thousand, but 
that day she fairly outdid herself. Eaton 
admitted to himself that a town six months 





The Winning of the Trans-Continental 117 

old able to furnish an impromptu dinner like 
the one he was eating wasn’t so far out of 
the world after all. 

After dinner, Barry and Messiter took him 
round to the club, and again the railroad 
man opened his eyes. The appointments and 
service were in excellent taste, and the few 
men he met were altogether different from 
the men he had expected to meet. Presently 
he found himself at whist with three men 
who knew the game as well as he did him¬ 
self. They attended strictly to their game, 
and seemed to have forgotten that there was 
such a railroad in existence as the Trans¬ 
continental. He was very fond of whist, 
and it was a genuine pleasure to meet peo¬ 
ple in this dropping-off place who knew 
enough to play by rule. 

Messiter’s fine hand was in evidence 
throughout the evening. Of the dozen men 
who knew that the president of the Trans¬ 
continental was in town, not one of them 
mentioned the town except incidentally, and 
then not by way of business. One of them 
grumbled about it to Heaton of the “ Jour¬ 
nal ”: “ Seems to me we’re losing valuable 


Stories from McClure’s 


118 

time. We ought to talk the town up when 
we have the chance,” he said. 

“ Jim Messiter is running this show. He’ll 
pull us through if anybody can, I guess. All 
we have to do is to take our cue and play up 
to him. There’s lots of time to talk business 
to-morrow. What we want to do to-night is 
to give Eaton a good time,” replied the 
journalist. 

When Eaton left with Messiter in the 
launch next day, he was surprised to find 
that he left the town with some regret. 
Instead of the anticipated bore, his visit had 
been quite a pleasure. He didn’t care much 
for the town itself, but there were some nice 
people in it, he thought. 

The rain began about the time the launch 
reached Inverness, and continued in torrents 
for several days. Eaton and Messiter put 
up at the nearest hotel, where the rain kept 
them pretty close prisoners. The cooking 
was wretched, and at the end of the second 
day Eaton was suffering badly from dys¬ 
pepsia. 

About this time the mayor of Inverness, a 
large, effusive man with a bad manner, who 






The Winning of the Trans-Continental 119 

had been haunting the depot for a day or 
two in a vain search for Mr. Eaton, discov¬ 
ered their presence at the hotel. Without 
the knowledge of the railroad president, he 
ordained for him a public reception. The 
railroad owner was dragged oft to meet a 
few friends, and three hours later found 
himself still limply shaking hands with men 
he never expected to meet again and listen¬ 
ing to inane banalities. 

The mayor of Inverness, good, amiable 
man, was in his element, and believed he 
was making an impression. He certainly 
made one at the close of the reception, when 
he attempted a confidential whisper and trod 
heavily on Eaton’s gouty toe. Messiter, in a 
far corner, smiled blandly, and repeated to 
himself softly, “ He’s digging a grave—he’s 
digging a grave—and I think Inverness is 
going to be the corpse.” 

Very few men can judge dispassionately 
and apart from their individual likes and 
dislikes. As President Eaton, after a 
wretched night’s rest, looked out of the 
hotel window at the rain still streaming 
down, he contrasted the pleasure he had had 


120 


Stories from McClure’s 


at Willapa Bend with the dismalness of In¬ 
verness and the thoroughly disagreeable ex¬ 
perience the place had given him. At that 
moment he would not have voted to give 
Inverness a wayside depot, far less to make 
it the terminus of his line. He felt he could 
not stand the place another hour. Suddenly 
he turned to Messiter and announced his 
intention of leaving that morning for 
Chicago. The young man asked when he 
might expect to hear what the decision of 
the company was in regard to the terminus. 

“ You can hear now,” answered the Presi¬ 
dent abruptly. Then he asked quickly: 

“ How about a bridge across the Willapa, if 
we run in from the north—will you guaran¬ 
tee to raise the money from the town ? ” 

Yes, sir,—if I pay every cent myself.” 

You will give us a right of way into 
your town, and plenty of room for yards 
and shops ? ” he asked sharply. 

“ All the room you want.” 

“ And a good site for an ocean wharf? ” I' 

“ Wherever you want it.” 

“ Then, Mr. Messiter, the terminus of the i 
Trans-Continental is yours.” 





The Winning of the Trans-Continental 121 

The room grew altogether too small for 
Messiter. He wanted to hug his portly vis- 
a-vis ; he had a desire to improvise the high¬ 
land fling with variations; he bethought him 
of his college yell, and wondered what Eaton 
would think if he were to let out a “ Hi-O- 
Hi.” He did none of these things. He 
waited a moment till his voice was under 
control, then said quietly: “ We’ll try to be 
worthy of the chance you have given us.” 

Half an hour later two telegrams went 
over the wires from Messiter. The one to 
Barry was in cipher, but interpreted it read: 

Willapa Bend gets the Trans-Continental. 
Letter follows. Wake things up to-night. 

Jim. 

The other was to New York. To the girl 
who opened it the message said: 

I hand you the Trans-Continental on a 
silver platter with my best bow. Start East 








Conductor Pat Francis 








CONDUCTOR PAT FRANCIS 


HO W THE YELLO IVSTONE EXCURSION 
ESCAPED ITS PURSUER 

By Frank H. Spearman 

f | ^HERE had been some talk at head¬ 
quarters about our conductors. It 

JL was intimated, and freely, from 
the auditing department that the 
men of the punch were not dividing fairly 
with the company. 

To this effect the general manager wrote 
Bucks, superintendent of the mountain di¬ 
vision. Bucks filed the letter away in the 
stove. Another communication fared no 
better. But there were some new people at 
headquarters; they had a record to make, 
and they proposed to write part of it on our 
backs. Bucks got another letter; he threw 
it in the stove. 

Pat Barlie often and often said he recom- 
125 







126 


Stories from McClure’s 


mended no ijian to drink whisky; he only 
recommended the whisky. I recommend no 
rising railroad man to burn the third letter 
on the same subject from his general man¬ 
ager; I merely recommend Bucks. He was 
at that time running the West End. They 
had tried running the West End without 
Bucks a while; then they had tried again 
running it with him. In both instances it 
was different. 

But the next time the general manager was 
out in his special,” he spoke to Bucks on 
the subject as if the mention were a virgin 
touch. Bucks muttered something about 
the general character of the trainmen and 
the decent lives and habits of the passenger 
conductors, and finished with an incidental 
expression of confidence in the men; that 
was about all. 

But the headquarters people, who were 
largely Boston, had ways and means all their 
own; and failing to interest Bucks in their 
hobby, they took a tack like this. 

To begin with, the night was bad. A holy 
fright, Pat Francis called it, and Pat had 


Conductor Pat Francis 


127 


seen most of the bad nights in the mountains 
for twenty-two years steady. It was snow¬ 
ing and raining and sleeting that night, ail 
at once; and blowing—it blew the oil out of 
the guide-cups. From the platform of the 
Wickiup—nobody in the gorge would call it 
a depot—from the Wickiup platform at 
Medicine Bend, Number One seemed to roll 
into division that night one reeking sheet of 
alkali ice—soda and frost solid from lamp to 
lamp. 

She was late, too, with a pair of the best 
engines that ever climbed a mountain head¬ 
ing her. She had lost time every mile of 
the way from the plains, and she was ordered 
west with another double-head and a pusher 
all the way over the Horseback. It was be¬ 
cause there was a Yellowstone excursion 
aboard. The Columbian Pacific connection 
was on that account especially desired; and 
that night at twelve o’clock, mountain time, 
with Number One especially late into the 
Bend, and the track especially bad, and the 
pull especially heavy, it looked—that Colum¬ 
bian Pacific connection—especially doubtful, 
except over in the despatcher’s offices, where 


128 


Stories from McClure’: 


they were being pounded to make it bv the 
excursion bureau. 

Bucks was down that night. There were 
many bad nights in the mountains, but 
Bucks never missed any of them by going to 
bed., On bad nights, Bucks, like a switch¬ 
man s pipe, was always out. He—Bucks— 
personally appeared at the Wickiup to see 
that things went. The men liked him be- 

™ as alwa / s read y to do anything 
he asked them to do. There was an esprit, 
a morale —whatever you call it—and a loy- 

rnZ °, B ^ ks P ersonall y- which made our 
mentake the chances that pay checks don’t 

' So, although the Columbian Pacific con¬ 
nection looked especially doubtful that night 
nevertheless there was Bucks, under a’ 
f ^ 011 and an W sh frieze "hat 

ingft thl H hf Wate r C ? ming its wa y> sta "d- 
To g i. at nr ke f nvers °f f * le head engine, while 
Jack Moore, in leather from heel to iaw 
went into the slush under her to touch up 

ness e in e fn- C Y lth A a , re P utation for cussed¬ 
ness in a pinch. And a minute later Bucks 

was walking back to figure with the out con- 


Conductor Pat Francis 


129 


ductor, Pat Francis, how to make schedule 
across to Wild Hat; though, as they talked, 
each man knew the other was not thinking 
at all of how to make schedule, but thinking 
—though never a word out loud of it, and 
hell to face all the way up the gorge on top 
of it—of how with flesh and blood and steel 
to beat schedule that night and land the 
uncertain connection, in spite of wind and 
weather and the bureau’s fears and the de¬ 
spatched growls. 

And all this for what? To dump a 
hundred or two Brooklyn people into the 
Yellowstone twenty-four hours earlier than 
they otherwise would have been dumped, 
though without doubt they would have been 
just that much better off loafing twenty-four 
hours longer away from their newspapers 
and ferries and street cars. Pat Francis 
listened grimly. A short, stocky fellow, 
Pat Francis. Not fat, but firm as a Bes¬ 
semer bar, and with considerably quicker 
play in his joints. He listened grimly, for 
he thought he could domino every play 
Bucks could make when it came to tricks 
for saving time on the Wild Hat run. Yet 


130 


Stories from McClure’: 


it heartened even Pat Francis, uncompromis¬ 
ing and grim, to have his superintendent 
there in the storm helping cut out the work 
tor such a particularly beastly pull. 

As Bucks broke away and started for the 
door of the Wickiup, Morris Barker—the 

« d l U fa r Wh n l 13 * 1 JUSt brou §' ht *e train in 
—saluted, walking out. With his coat but¬ 
toned snug, in the comfortable insolence of 
*.“ an ,f° ln S home, Morris stepped to the 

with Pat Francis™ ‘° CXChange confidences 

, JPf’ there ’ s T a half-fare back in the Port- 
knd sleeper. I heard McIntyre say at Mc¬ 
Cloud that some of Alfabet Smith’s men 
are working up here. Anyway there? a 
cattleman in a canvas coat in the chair car 
smooth face, red tie, to look out for. He got 
on at Harding and tried a short fare on me! 

I sized him up for a spotter.” 

dl ^ n,t y°u chuck him off’” 
growled Pat Francis. 

P ut U P , af ter a while-and you bet 

DO? fa Weh° eS al l em hroidered re¬ 

port. Well, good luck, Patsy.” 

Pat Francis raised his lamp through the 


Conductor Pat Francis 131 

fog and rain at the engineers. Jack Moore 
coughed, suddenly and twice, with his hollow 
whistle. The hind engine saluted hoarsely; 
from the rear the pusher piped shrill, and 
Bucks in the doorway watched the panting 
train pull taut up the Bend into the swirling 
snow. And he knew as he watched that 
nothing worth considering would get away 
from Pat Francis—not a scheme nor a cut¬ 
off nor a minute nor a re-vamped coupon 
ticket. Pat before quitting at Benton, Pat 
up the gorge and over the Horseback, was 
pretty sure to catch everything inside the 
vestibules. 

He swung up on the platform of the bag¬ 
gage-car as the train moved out, and shook 
the snow off his cap as he opened the door. 
He set his lamp on an up-end trunk, took 
off his overcoat and hung it up. In the front 
end of the car a pack of hunting dogs yelped 
a dismal chorus. Old John Parker, the bag¬ 
gageman was checking up a pile of trunks 
that rose tier on tier to the roof of the car. 
John Parker wore a pair of disreputable iron 
spectacles. His hair, scant where it wasn't 
extinct, tumbled about his head loose at both 





I 3 2 


Stories from McClure’: 


ends. His gray beard was a good bit 
s ronger in the fly than in the hoist, and t 
7 ” ' v ? d thin as a coach whip; but 
old John had behind his dirty spectacles a 
pair of eyes just as fine as steel. Francis 
opened his tram box and asked the baggage¬ 
man why he didn't kill those dogs, an^ get¬ 
ting no answer-for John Pad< er wa S 
checking hard and stopped only to shift his 
whiskers off the clip-lhe conductor got ou 
his b!ue pencil and his black pencil and fi°ed 

awa J’ t0 °^ UP his P un ^h and his trip 
<*«*» an . d P u t them in their proper pocket* 

anoth d hlS f me - tab,e ‘he boxTo still 

The head^nrfh 7 ^ picked U P his lantern, 
tne head-end brakeman coming in iust then 

;s.yasrr- F »« 

a peg nearer the stove and spread it out bet- 
Paricer h d tene t ? 3 wi,d r ’™°r old John 

h ™4£ ned ‘‘¥° *35«°S 

Without wasting e any ^ m 0 ent B p a It footed 


Conductor Pat Francis 133 

at his watch and listened to the click of the 
truck over the fish-plates under foot, and to 
the angry tremulous roar of the three fur¬ 
naces melting coal to push Number One up 
against the wind, that curled like a cork¬ 
screw down the long, narrow gorge. Then 
he took the lantern from his menial, and 
strode quickly through the vestibule into the 
dirty light and foul air of the smoker. 

“ Tickets! ” 

No “ please,” that night, just “ Tickets! ” 
short and snappy as a bear trap. He could 
talk very differently at home to the babies— 
but there was no suggestion of kootsying ill 
the tone that called for transportation in the 
smoker. He passed down the aisle, pulling, 
hauling, shaking the snorting brutes, not¬ 
ing, punching, checking under the rays of 
1 his lamp, until the last man was passed and 
he walked into the chair car. There was 
only one “ go-back,” a sleepy Italian who 
couldn’t—even after he had been jerked out 
of his seat and turned upside down and in¬ 
side out, and shaken and cursed—still he 
couldn’t find his ticket. So Pat Francis 
passed him with the shocking intimation 



134 


Stories from McClure’s 


which amounted to an assurance, that if he 
didn’t find it by the time he got back he 
would throw him off. 

The transportation on Number One was 
mostly through tickets and required only or¬ 
dinary care as to the date limits; not much 
scalper’s stuff turned up on the west-bound. 
Pat called again as he closed the door of the 
chair car behind him a shade less harshly 
for tickets, because one naturally respects 
more people who ride in the chair car; and 
then there are women. One speaks more 
civilly to women passengers, but scans their 
transportation more carefully. However, 
he wasn’t thinking of women’s wiles as he 
quietly roused the sleepers and asked for 
their credentials. They were worn, tired- 
looking women; haggard, a good many of : 
them, from cat naps snatched in the specially 
devised discomfort chairs, while their more 
fortunate sisters slept peacefully back in the 
hair-mattressed Pullman berths. He was 
thinking solely as he mechanically went 
through the checking operations, of a cattle¬ 
man in a canvas coat, smooth face, and red 
tie, who should by rights be now halfway 





Conductor Pat Francis 


*35 


he down the car, just ahead of him. But 
he conductor Francis didn’t look. His eyes 
never rose beyond the passenger under his 
as nose, for in front of a company detective 
)F«' the hate and the curiosity are all concealed; 
ch the conductor is strictly on dress parade 
id, with a sting in his right arm that he would 
he like to land directly under the spotter’s ear. 
ill A shabby traveling man—a cigar man— 
tj handed up a local ticket. It was for Ante- 
ad lope Gap. Pat Francis looked at it for a 
re minute before he punched it and stuck it in 
!r his pocket. 

r “We don’t stop at Antelope Gap to¬ 
re night,” said he shortly, 
r “Don’t stop?” echoed the cigar man, 
]. wide awake in a fraction of a second. “ Vy, 
)f! since ven? Dey tolt me you dit,” he cried 
v in the most injured tone on the train, 
e “ Can’t help it.” 
e “But vy-ef” 

3 “ I’m late.” 

“ Bud y’ god-do! ” cried the cigar man, 

. raising a note of absolute terror, as Pat 
J Francis passed calmly on without attempting 
; to controvert the confidence of the drummer. 




136 


Stories from McClure’; 


“ Ain’t you god-do?” appealed the latter, 
weakening a bit as he realized he was against 
a quiet man and hard. 

“ Not on local transportation. Tickets! ” 
he continued to the next. 

But the cigar man happily came of a race 
that does not uncomplainingly submit, and 
he kicked vociferously, as Pat Francis ex- 
pected he would. By the time the excited 
salesman had woke everybody up in his end 
of the car and worked himself into a lather, 
at him with a proposition. 

“ Where you going from Antelope? ” 

Vild Hat.” 


“What’s the matter with going up to Wild 
Hat to-night, and I’ll give you a train check 
back to Antelope on Two to-morrow: then 
you can get back on Seventy-One to the 


The injured man considered quickly ac¬ 
cepted speedily Two hundred miles for 
nothing. ‘My frient! Haff a cigar, aber 
L m y dransbordation back, vil! 
you. The conductor nodded as he took 
the cigar stoically and moved on. It was 
one stop saved, and the Antelope stop was a 





Conductor Pat Francis 


137 

a* J error an y time with a big train like Num- 
nst ber One. 

Francis has reached the rear of the chair 
!": car, when he had an impression he had for¬ 
gotten something. He stopped to think, 
ice The cattleman! Turning, he looked back 
d shar piy over the passengers. He even walked 
:x- slowly back through the car looking for the 
:ed tellow. There was no cattleman in sight, 
d and walking back, Francis dismissed him 
. with the conclusion that he must have gotten 
off at the Bend; and at once the air in the 
chair car smelt fresher and cleaner. Into 
the sleepers then—that was easy. Only to 
'] take the batch of envelopes from each porter 
:k ? r conductor, and tear off the coupons, and 
:a in Portland sleeper a half-fare which 
e meant only a little row with the tactless 
man who had gone into a bitter discussion 
with a conductor the day before away back 
!r the Missouri River, as to whether his boy 
;f fnould pay fare. Instead of gracefully pay- 
]f w ben called on, he had abused the con- 
j, auctor, who, maybe because there was a 
spotter sitting by, had felt compelled for 
self-protection to collect the half rate. But 




138 Stories from McClure’s 

in retaliation for the abuse the conductor 
had reported to the next conductor a half¬ 
fare in the Portland sleeper, and thus started 
an endless chain of annoyance that would 
haunt the traveler all the way to the coast. 
But sometime travelers will study tact, and 
forswear abuse and its penalties. 

Conductor Francis, finishing the string of 
loaded Pullmans, sat down in the smoking 
room of the last car with the hind end brake- 
man to straighten out his collections. The 
headlight of the pusher threw in a yellow 
dazzle of light on them, and the continuous 
cut of its fire boomed from the stack. Pat 
Francis, setting down his lamp, began to 
sniff. 

Smell anything ? ” he asked presently of 
his companion. 

No,” answered the brakeman, drawing | 
his head from the curtain hood under which 
he had been looking out into the storm. 

“ Something here don’t smell right,” said 
Francis shortly, sorting his tickets. “ Where 
are we ? ” 

“ Getting out of the gorge.” 

Francis looked at his watch. “ Is Jack 






Conductor Pat Francis 


*39 


his own?” ventured the brake- 


holding 
man. 

“Just about.” 

u ^ to P at Antelope to-night ? ” 

Not on your life.” 

“ Red Cloud ? ” 

“ Not to-night.” 

“ How about the pusher ? ” 

night” the ^ ° Ver the Horse hack to- 
“ That’s the stuff.” 

p “ that’s Bucks. Bucks is the stuff,” said 

to in fZ ttaS ’J lr ^ tran, y picking up his lamp 
to go forward Two minutes later, he was in 

shakinThta. g ° Ver the It3lian and 

“ Got your ticket, Tony ? ” 

“No gotta ticket.” 

“ Money ? ” 

“ No gotta d’mun.” 

by“th C e?o e ilaT’ ‘ hen! ” gripped him 

“ Whata do ? ” 

“ Throw you off.” 

The Italian drew back to resist. They 
parleyed a moment longer, only because 




140 


Stories from McClure’s 


Francis was bluffing. If he had meant to 
stop the train at any point he would have 
said nothing—simply dragged the fellow out 
by the hair. 

At last the Italian produced three dollars ' 
and a half. It was only enough to check 
him to Red Cloud. He wanted to go 
through, and the fare was eleven dollars and 
twenty cents. 

The silent conductor stuck the money in 
his pocket, and drew his cash-fare slips. j 
Just then the pusher whistled a stop signal. 
Francis started, suddenly furious at the 
sound. Shoving the slips into his pocket, he i 
hurried to the vestibule and put his head i 
angrily out. Ahead he saw only old John 
Parker’s lamp and streamers. John had slid 
his door before Francis could open the vesti¬ 
bule. That was why the conductor loved 
him, because nobody, not even he himself, 
ever got ahead of John. When Francis 
poked his head out to look for trouble, John 
Parker’s head was already in the wind in¬ 
specting the trouble, which came this time 
from the hind end. Looking back, Francis 
saw a blaze leaping from a journal box. 





Conductor Pat Francis 


141 

S . “ J ust as 1 expected,” he muttered, with a 
freezing word. “That hind-end man 
couldn t smell a tar bucket if you stuck his 
head into it. Get your grease, John,” he 
shouted at the old baggageman, “ and a pair 
of brasses. Hustle!” 

There was hardly time for the crew to 
I sll P in to their overcoats, when Moore made 
a sullen stop. But old John Parker was 
ready, and waiting ahead of the stop with a 
can of grease, because John didn’t have any 
' overcoat. He hustled bad nights without 
an overcoat; for his two girls were at 
boarding school back in Illinois. John 
picked up enough every month carrying 
dogs to buy an overcoat, but the dog money 
went largely, for music and French, which 
were^ extras in Illinois; so the girls parlez- 
vous d, and John piled out without any 
overcoat. 

Pat Francis stormed worse than the 
mountains as he followed him. All the 
scheming to save a single stop was blaz¬ 
ing away in the hot box. Moore, on the 
head engine, was too angry to leave his 
cab. It was just a bit too exasperating. 





142 


Stories from McClure’s 


The pusher crew stood by, and the second 
engineer helped just a little. 

But it was Pat Francis and John, with 
the safeties screaming bedlam in their ears, 
with the sleet creeping confidingly down 
their backs, and with the water soaking un¬ 
awares up their legs—it was Pat and John, 
silent and stubborn, who dug bitterly at the 
sizzling box, flung out the blazing waste, set 
the screw, twisted it, hooked out the smok¬ 
ing brasses, shoved in the new ones, 
dumped the grease, stuffed the waste, and 
raised their lamps for Moore before the last 
of the bad words had blown out of the head 
cab and down the canon. With a squeak- i 
ing and groaning and jerking, with a 
vicious break-away and an anxious interval 
whenever a pair of drivers let go, Moore 
got his enormous load rolling up the grade 
again, and kept her rolling hour after hour 
along curve and tangent to the Horseback, 
and across. |i 

At the crest day broke, and the long, * 
heavy train, far above the night and the 
storm screamed for the' summit yard 1 
slowed up, halted, and every man jack of ^ 








Conductor Pat Francis 


*43 


* he ‘™ n f rew and engine crews jumped off 
to shake hands with himself on the plucky 

better. 1 " ° f * schedule and S 

“How’d you ever do it, Jack?” asked 
Pat Francis at the head engine, as Moore 

crawled out of her undersides. 

How late are we?” returned the eno-i- 
wr e ench. tOWlng ^ Md callin & for*a 
“ Three hours.” 

. “? eat J he time a little, didn’t we?” 
laughed Moore, with a face like a lobster 
Couldn t done it, Pat, if you’d stopped me 
anywhere. I wouldn’t done it-not for 
anybody. Burdick is knocked clean out, 
too Are you all ready back there?” The 
pusher’ disconnected, galloped by with a 
jubilant kick for the round-house; and the 
double-header, watered and coaled afresh 
started with Number One down the moun- 
tain side. 

A different start that—a running past the 
wind instead of into it; a slmng that 
brought excursionists up in a tumble as the 
sleepers swung lariat-like around the canon 





144 


Stories from McClure’s 

corners. It was only a case of hanging on 
after that, hanging on all the way to Wild 
Hat; and then, just as the Columbian Pa¬ 
cific train passengers left their breakfasts 
at Benton, Number One, gray and grimy, 
rolled into the junction thirty-five minutes 
late—and the agony was over. The con¬ 
nection was safe, but nobody noticed who 
made it. Everybody was too much occupied 
with the sunshine and the scenery to ob¬ 
serve a pair of disreputable, haggard, 
streaked, hollow-eyed tramps who made 
their way modestly along the edge of the 
crowd that thronged the platform; It was 
only Francis and Moore, conductor and en¬ 
gineer of Number One. 

The agony was over for everybody but 
Pat Francis. Ten days later, Bucks, super¬ 
intendent of the mountain division, sat in 
his den at the Wickiup, reading a letter j 
from the general manager. 

Sir: On Thursday, June 28th, Conductor j 
P. Francis, leaving M. B. on Number One, 
collected a cash fare of three dollars and 





Conductor Pat Francis 


145 


fifty cents from one of our special service 
men. He failed to issue a cash-fare slip 
for this as required; furthermore, he car¬ 
ried this passenger all the way to Benton. 
Kindly effect his discharge. Let it be dis¬ 
tinctly understood that all delinquencies of 
this nature will be summarily dealt with. 

A. W. Bannerman, 

General Manager. 

It wasn’t a letter to go to the stove—not 
that kind of a letter; but Bucks fingered it 
much as Pat Francis ought to have fingered 
the clever detective who turned from the 
chair car to the “ smoker ” on him and 
from a cattleman to a “ dago.” 

Bucks called the trainmaster. Francis 
was west, due to leave Benton that after¬ 
noon on Two, and, as luck would have it, 
to bring back the Brooklyn party from the 
Yellowstone. And the passenger depart¬ 
ment in Chicago was again heating the 
wires with injunctions to take care of them, 
and good care of them, because the excur¬ 
sion business on a new line is not only prof¬ 
itable, but it is hard to work up, and trouble 




146 


Stories from McClure’s 


with an excursion in the beginning means a 
hoodoo for months, and maybe for years 
to come. J 

fW U p k ?u elt esp , eci f n >' gratified to know 
that Pat brancis had the precious load, but 

TWt t b °p ?%, CaS K fare from Medicine 

thW t0 ^ ed , C ‘° Ud? Bucks knew these 
inef-L'Tf'V bt ; tr u ifled with-not on his 
ne and he faced the pleasant prospect of 
next morning greeting his right bower in 
the passenger service with an accusation of 
theft and a summary discharge. If he had 
only asked me for three dollars and a half 
thought Bucks sorely. He would rather 
hls own pay check than to have 
a ^ at r^ ra ?? ls U P one dollar. 

And Pat Francis, taciturn, sphinx-like 
was punching transportation at that partic- 
ular moment on Number Two on the run 
east from Benton. Checking passengers 
keeping one eye on the ventilators and the 

°u°Vu e d , ate limits ’ working both pen! 
cils, both hands, both ears, both ends of the 
punch, and both sides of the car at the same 

There wasn’t a cinder to break the even 



Conductor Pat Francis 


147 


enjoyment of the run up to the clouds. 
Everybody was going home, and going 
home happy. From the Pullmans—it was 
warm and sunny in the mountains—came 
nothing but rag time and Brooklyn yells. 
To describe our scenery might be invidious, 
but the grade where Number Two was then 
climbing would alone make the fortune of 
an ordinary eastern scenic line. 

The Overland Freight, Number Sixty- 
six, east-bound with a long train of tea, was 
pulling out of Toltec station as Number 
Two stuck its head into the foot of the 
Noose. 

At Toltec, on the day run, we take a 
man’s breath and give him large value for 
his money in a bit of the prettiest engi¬ 
neering anywhere on earth. 

Toltec lies in the Powder Range, near the 
foot of a great curve called the Noose, be¬ 
cause every time an engineer slips the head 
of his train into it he is glad to hold his 
breath till he gets it out. 

The Toltec Noose is engineering mag¬ 
nificent ; but it is railroading without 
words—unless one counts the wicked 




148 


Stories from McClure’s 


words. Eagle Pass station, the head of the 
Noose, looks across an unspeakable gulf di¬ 
rectly down into Toltec, 500 feet below, and 
barely a mile away. But by the rail 1 we 
count seven miles around that curve, and 
without any land-grant perquisites, either. 

Every train that runs the Noose is 
double-headed both ways, and now—this 
was before—they add, to keep trainmen off 
the relief scrap, a pusher. 

That day there was no pusher behind the 
Overland Freight, and Number Two’s 
crew, as they pulled out of Toltec to climb 
the loop, could plainly see, above and across, 
the storming, struggling, choking engines 
of the tea train as they neared with their 
load the summit of Eagle Pass. 

The wind bore down to them in breaking 
waves the sucking, roaring cut of the quiv¬ 
ering furnaces. Pat Francis stood in the 
open door of the baggage-car, old John 
Parker and the head brakeman beside him, 
looking together at the freight with the 
absorbed air of men at the bottom of a well 
who watch the loaded bucket near the top. 

Through the thin, clear mountain air they 






Conductor Pat Francis 


149 


could almost read the numbers on the en¬ 
gine tenders. They could see the freight 
conductor start over his train for the head- 
end, and as they looked they saw his train 
break in two behind him and the rear end, 
parting like a snake’s tail, slough off, lose 
headway, and roll back down the hill. The 
hind-end brakeman, darting from the ca¬ 
boose, ran up the ladder like a cat, and be¬ 
gan setting brakes. The passenger crew 
saw the brake-shoes clutch in a flame at the 
slipping trucks, but the drawbars couldn’t 
stand it. From one of the big tea cars a 
drawhead parted like a tooth. The tea train 
again broke in two, this time behind the 
rear brakeman, and the caboose with five 
60,000-pound cars shot down the grade; 
and Number Two was now climbing above 
Toltec. 

A volley of danger signals curled white 
from the freight engine across the gulf. 
Pat Francis sprang for the bell cord, but 
it was needless; his engineers at the very 
moment threw double chambers of air on 
the wheels. 

It caught cards off the whist tables, and 




Stories from McClure’: 


I 5 ° 

swept baked potatoes into the bosoms of 
astonished diners, it spoiled the point of 
pretty jokes and broke the tedium of stupid 
stories, it upset roysterers and staggered 
sober men, it basted the cooks with gravy 
and the waiters with fruit, it sent the blood 
to the hearts and a chill to the brains, it 
was an emergency stop and a severe one— 
Number Two was against it. Before the 
frightened porters could open the vestibules 
the passenger engines were working in the 
back motion, and Number Two was scut¬ 
tling down the Noose to get away from 
impending disaster. The trainmen huddled 
again in the baggage-car door, with their 
eyes glued on the runaways; the Noose is 
so perfect a curve that every foot of their 
night could be seen. It was a race back¬ 
wards to save the passenger train; but for 
every mile they could crowd into its wheels 
the runaways were making two. Pat Fran¬ 
cis saw it first—saw it before they had cov¬ 
ered half the distance back to Toltec Thev 
could never make the hill west of the 
Noose; it wasn’t in steam to beat gravity 
moreover, if they crowded Number Two 


Conductor Pat Francis 


*51 

too hard she might fly an elevation, and go 
into the gulf. It is one thing to run down 
hill, and another thing to fall down hill. 
The tea train was falling down hill. 

Francis turned to bareheaded John Par¬ 
ker, and handed him his watch and his 
money. 

“ What do you mean ? ” John Parker 
choked the words out, because he knew 
what he meant. 

“ Turn this stuff in to Bucks, John, if I 
don’t make it. It’s all company money.” 

The brakeman, greenish and dazed, 
steadied himself with a hand on the jamb; 
the baggageman stared wild-eyed through 
his rusty lenses. “ Pat,” he faltered, “ what 
do you mean ? ” 

“ I’ll drop off at the Toltec switch and 
maybe I can open it to catch that string— 
we’ll never make it this way, John, in God’s 
world.” 

“ You might a’most as well jump out into 
the canon; you’ll never live to use a switch 
key, Pat—we’re crowding a mile a min¬ 
ute—” 

Francis looked at him steadily as he 


15 2 Stories from McClure’s 

pulled his ring and took a switch key off the 
bunch. 

“ They’re crowding Two, John.” 

The car slued under them. John Parker 
tore off his spectacles. 

“ Pat, I’m a lighter man than you—give 
me the switch key! ” he cried, gripping the 
conductor’s shoulder as he followed him out 
the door to the platform. 

“ No.” 

“ Your children are younger than mine, 
Pat. Give me the key.” 

“ This is my train, John. Ask Bucks to 
look after my insurance.” 

With these words, Francis tore the old 
man s hand roughly away. When a minute 
is a mile, action is quick. Sixty, seventy 
seconds more meant the Toltec switch, and j 
the conductor already hung from the bot¬ 
tom step of the baggage-car. 

Pat Francis was built like a gorilla. He 
swung with his long arms in and out from 
the reeling train into a rhythm, one foot 
dangling in the suck of dust and cinders, 
the other bracing lightly against the step 
tread. Then, with the switch key in his 




Conductor Pat Francis 


*53 


mouth; with Parker’s thin hair streaming 
over him, and a whirlwind sucking to the 
wheels under him; with Number Two’s 
drivers racing above him and a hundred 
passengers staring below him, Pat Francis 
let go. 

Men in the sleepers, only half under¬ 
standing, saw as he disappeared a burst of 
alkali along the track. Only old John Par¬ 
ker’s gray eye could see that his conductor, 
though losing his feet, had rolled clear of 
the trucks and drivers, and was tumbling 
in the storm center like a porcupine. Above 
him the tea cars were lurching down the 
grade. Old John, straining, saw Francis 
stagger to his feet and double back like a 
jack-knife on the ballast. A lump jumped 
into the baggageman’s throat, but Francis’ 
head rose again out of the dust; he raised 
again on his hands, and dragging after 
him one leg like a dead thing, crawled heav¬ 
ily towards the switch. He reached the 
stand and caught at it. He pulled himself 
up on one leg, and fumbled an instant at the 
lock, then he jerked the target. As it fell, 
clutched in both his hands, the caboose of 


J 54 


Stories from McClure’s 


the tea train leaped on the tongue rail. The 
fore truck shot into the switch. The heels, 
caught for a hundredth of a second in the 
slue, flew out, and like the head of a foam¬ 
ing cur the caboose doubled frantically on 
its tailers. The tea cars tripped, jumped 
the main rail like cannon balls, one, two, 
three, four, five—out and into the open 
gulf. 

The crash rolled up the gorge and down. 
It drove eagles from their nests and wolves 
from their hollows. Startled birds wheel¬ 
ing above the headlong cars shrieked a 
chorus; a cloud like smoke followed the 
wreck down the mountain side. And the 
good people on Number Two, the pleasure 
seekers that Pat Francis was taking care of 
—$125 a month—saw it all and tried to 
keep cool and think. 

He lay prostrate across the road, a 
bruised and dirty and bloody thing. John 
Parker, stumbling on rickety knees, reached 
him first, and turned him over. John first 
spoke to him, but he spoke again and again 
before the bloodshot eyes reluctantly 
opened. And then Pat Francis, choking, 


Conductor Pat Francis 


r 55 

spitting, gasping, clutching at John Par¬ 
ker s bony arm, raised his head. It fell 
back into the cinders. But he doggedly 
raised it again and shook the broken teeth 
from between his lips—and lived. His face 
was like a section of beefsteak, and the iron 
■ leg; that struck the ballast last had snapped 
twice under him. A few minutes after¬ 
ward he lay in the stateroom of the for¬ 
ward sleeper, and tried with his burning 
swollen tongue to talk to Brooklyn men 
who feelingly stared at him, and to Brook- 
Ivn women who prettily cried at him, and to 
. old John Parker who unsteadily swore at 
him as he fanned his own whiskers and Pat 
Francis’ head with the baggage clip. 

When Number Two rolled into Medicine 
Bend next morning, Bucks climbed aboard 
and without ceremony elbowed his way 
through the excursionists dressing in the 
aisles to the injured conductor’s stateroom. 
He was in there a good bit. When he came 
out, the chief priests of Brooklyn crowded 
around to say fast things to the superin- 
tendent about his conductor and their con¬ 
ductor. As they talked, Bucks looked in a 




Stories from McClure’s 


*56 

minute over their heads; he did that way 
when thinking. Then he singled out the 
Depew of the party and put his hand on his 
shoulder. 

“ Look here/’ said Bucks, and his words 
snapped like firecrackers, “ I want you gen¬ 
tlemen to do something for your con¬ 
ductor.” 

“ We’ve made up a purse of $300 for 
him, my friend,” announced the spokesman 
gladly. 

“ I don’t mean that; not that. He’s in 
trouble. You needn’t waste any breath on 
me. I know that man as well as if I’d made ! 
him. I’ll tell you what I want. I want you f 
to come upstairs and dictate your account of 
the accident to my stenographer. While 
you’re eating breakfast, he’ll copy it and 
you can all sign it afterward. Will you?” 

“Will we? Get your slave!” 

“ I’ll tell you why,” continued Bucks, ad¬ 
dressing the Brooklyn man impressively, jj 
“ You look like a man who, maybe, knows 
what trouble is—” 

“ I do.” 

“ I thought so,” exclaimed Bucks, warm- 


1 






Conductor Pat Francis 


157 


ing. “If that’s so, we belong to the same 
lodge—same degree. You see, there’s 
charges against him. They’ve had spotters 
after him,” added Bucks, lowering his voice 
to the few gentlemen who crowded about. 

“ There’s plenty of Brooklyn men here 
for a lynching! ” 

Bucks smiled a far-off smile. “ The boys 
wouldn’t trouble you to help if they could 
catch them. I want your statement to send 
in to headquarters with Francis’ answer to 
the charges. They tried to make him out a 
thief, but I’ve just found out they haven’t 
touched him. His explanation is perfectly 
straight.” 

The men of Brooklyn tumbled up the 
Wickiup stairs. At breakfast, the news 
traveled faster than hot rolls. When the 
paper was drawn, the signing began; but 
they so crowded the upper floor that Bucks 
was afraid of a collapse, and the testimonial 
was excitedly carried down to the waiting- 
room. Then the women wanted to sign. 
When they began, it looked serious, for no 
woman could be hurried, and those who 
were creatures of sentiment dropped a tear 


Stories from McClure’s 


158 

on their signatures, thinking the paper was 
to hang in Pat Francis’ parlor. 

In the end Bucks had to hold Number 
Two thirty minutes, and to lay out the re¬ 
mains of the tea train, which was still wait- 
ing to get out of the yard. 

After the last yell from the departing ex¬ 
cursionists, Bucks went back to his office, 
and dictated for the general manager a 
report of the Toltec wreck. Then he wrote 
this letter to him: 

Replying to yours of the eighth, relative 
to the charges against conductor P. J. 
Francis. I have his statement in the mat¬ 
ter. The detective who paid the cash fare 
to Red Cloud was not put off there because 
no stop was made, the train being that night 
H I 1 “e r my orders to make no stops below 
Wild Hat. It was the first of the Brooklyn 
Yellowstone excursions, and Chicago was 
anxious to make the Columbian Pacific con¬ 
nection. This was done in spite of Number 
One s coming into this division three hours 
late and against a hard storm. At Wild 
Hat the detective, rigged as an Italian, was 


Conductor Pat Francis 


*59 

overlooked in the hurry and carried by. 
While no cash-fare slip was issued, the fare 
was turned in by Conductor Francis to the 
auditor in the regular way, and investiga¬ 
tion of his trip report will, he tells me, con¬ 
firm his statement of fact. If so, I think 
you will agree with me that he is relieved of 
any suspicion of dishonesty in the matter. 
I have nevertheless cautioned him on his 
failure to hand the passenger a fare- 
voucher, and have informed him that his 
explanation was entirely satisfactory; in 
xact, after the affair at Toltec he deserves 
I a great deal more from the company. By 
request of the Brooklyn excursionists, I in¬ 
close an expression of their opinion of Con¬ 
ductor Francis’ jump from Number Two 
to set the Toltec switch. All of which is 
respectfully submitted. 

J. F. Bucks, 

Superintendent. 

Pat Francis is still running passenger. 
But Alfabet Smith’s men work more now 
on the East End. 













An Engineer’s Christmas 
Story 





✓ 




AN ENGINEER’S CHRIST¬ 
MAS STORY 

By James A. Hill 

I N the summer, fall, and early winter of 
1863, I was tossing chips into an old 
Hinkley insider up in New England, 
for an engineer by the name of James 
Dillon. Dillon was considered as good a 
man as there was on the road: careful, yet 
fearless, kindhearted, yet impulsive, a man 
whose friends would fight for him and 
whose enemies hated him right royally. 

Dillon took a great notion to me, and I 
loved him as a father; the fact of the matter 
is, he was more of a father to me than I 
had at home, for my father refused to be 
comforted when I took to railroading, and 
I could not see him more than two or three 
times a year at the most—so when I wanted 
advice I went to Jim. 

163 


164 


Stories from McClure’s 


I was a young fellow then, and being 
without a home at either end of the run, 
was likely to drop into pitfalls. Dillon 
saw this long before I did. Before I had 
been with him three months, he told me one 
day, coming in, that it was against his 
principles to teach locomotive-running to a 
young man who was likely to turn out a 
drunkard or gambler and disgrace the pro¬ 
fession, and he added that I had better pack 
up my duds and come up to his house and 
let “ mother ” take care of me—and I went. 

I was not a guest there; I paid my room- 
rent and board just as I should have done 
anywhere else, but I had all the comforts of 
a home, and enjoyed a thousand advantages 
that money could not buy. I told Mrs. Dil¬ 
lon all my troubles, and found kindly sym¬ 
pathy and advice; she encouraged me in all 
my ambitions, mended my shirts, and went 
with me when I bought my clothes. Inside 
of a month, I felt like one of the family, 
called Mrs. Dillon “ mother,” and blessed 
my lucky stars that I had found them. 

Dillon had run a good many years, and 
was heartily tired of it, and he seldom 


An Engineer’s Christmas Story 165 

passed a nice farm that he did not call my 
attention to it, saying: “ Jack, now there’s 
comfort; you just wait a couple of years— 
I’ve got my eye on the slickest little place 

just on the edge of M-, that I am saving 

up my pile to buy. I'll give you the ‘ Roger 
William ’ one of these days, Jack, say good 
evening to grief, and me and mother will 
take comfort. Think of sleeping till eight 
o’clock,—and no poor steamers, Jack, no 
poor steamers! ” And he would reach over, 
and give my head a gentle duck as I tried 
to pitch a curve to a front corner with a 
knot; those Hinkleys were powerful ion 
cold water. 

In Dillon’s household there was a “ sys¬ 
tem ” of financial management. He always 
gave his wife just half of what he earned; 
kept ten dollars for his own expenses during 
the month, out of which he clothed him¬ 
self; and put the remainder in the bank. 
It was before the days of high wages, how¬ 
ever, and even with this frugal manage¬ 
ment, the bank account did not grow 
rapidly. They owned the house in which 
they lived, and out of her half “ mother 



i66 


Stories from McClure’s 


had to pay all the household expenses and - 
taxes, clothe herself and two children, and 
send the children to school. The oldest, a ' 
girl of some sixteen years, was away at nor-: 
mal school, and the boy, about thirteen or 
fourteen, was at home, going to the public 
school and wearing out more clothes than i 
all the rest of the family. 

Dillon told me that they had agreed on 
the financial plan followed in the family be¬ 
fore their marriage, and he used to say that 
for the life of him he did not see how 
mother ” got along so well on the allow¬ 
ance. When he drew a small month’s pay 
he would say to me, as we walked home: 

No cream in the coffee this month, Jack.” ! 
}* lt were unusually large, he would say: 

F lum^duff and fried chicken for a Sunday 
dinner.” He insisted that he could detect 
the rate of his pay in the food, but this was 
not^ true—it was his kind of fun. “ Moth¬ 
er ” and I were fast friends. She became 
my banker, and when I wanted an extra 
ollar, I had to ask her for it and tell what 
I wanted it for, and all that. 

Along late in November, Jim had to make 




An Engineer’s Christmas Story ^7 

an extra one night on another engine, 
which left me at home alone with “ mother ” 

and the boy—I had never seen the girl_ 

and after swearing me to be both deaf, 
dumb, and blind, “ mother ” told me a se¬ 
cret. For ten years she had been saving 
money out of her allowance, until the 
amount now reached nearly $2,000. She 
knew of Jim s life ambition to own a farm, 
and she had the matter in hand, if I would 
help her. Of course I was head over heels 
into the scheme at once. She wanted to 

buy the farm near M-, and give Jim the 

deed for a Christmas present; and Jim 
mustn’t even suspect. 

Jim never did. 

The next trip I had to buy some under¬ 
clothes; would “ mother ” tell me how to 
pick out pure wool? Why, bless your 
heart, no, she wouldn’t, but she’d just put 
on her things and go down with me. Jim 
smoked and read at home. 

We went straight to the bank where Jim 
kept his money, asked for the president, 
and let him into the whole plan. Would he 
take $2,100 out of Jim’s money, unbeknown 



Stories from McClure’s 


168 

to Jim, and pay the balance of the price of 
the farm over what “mother” had? 

No, he would not; but he would advance 
the money for the purpose—have the deeds 
sent to him, and he would pay the price— 
that was fixed. 

Then I hatched up an excuse and changed 

off with the fireman on the M-branch, 

and spent the best part of two lay-overs 
fixing up things with the owner of the farm 
and arranging to hold back the recording' 
of the deeds until after Christmas. Every 
evening there was some part of the project 
to be talked over, and “ mother ” and I held 
many whispered conversations. Once Jim, 
smiling, observed that, if I had any hair on 
my face, he would be jealous. 

I remember that it was on the 14th day of 
December, 1863, that pay-day came. I 
banked my money with “ mother,” and 
Jim, as usual, counted out his half to that 
dear old financier. 

“ Uncle Sam’d better put that ’un in the 
hospital,” observed Jim, as he came to a 
ragged ten-dollar bill. “ Goddess of Lib- 



An Engineer’s Christmas Story 169 

erty pretty near got her throat cut there; 
guess some reb has had hold of her,” he 
continued, as he held up the bill. Then 
laying it down, he took out his pocket-book 
and cut off a little three-cornered strip of 
pink court-plaster, and made repairs on the 
bill. 

Mother ” pocketed her money greedily, 
and before an hour I had that very bill in 
my pocket to pay the recording fees in the 
court-house at M-. 

The next day Jim wanted to use more 
money than he had in his pocket, and asked 
me to lend him a dollar. As I opened my 
wallet to oblige him, that patched bill 
showed up. Jim put his finger on it. and 
then turning me around towards him, he 
said: “ How came you by that ? ” 

I turned red—I know I did—but I said, 
cool enough, “ ‘ Mother ’ gave it to me in 
change.” 

“ That’s a lie,” he said, and turned away. 

The next day we were more than two- 
thirds of the way home before he spoke; 
then, as I straightened up after a fire, he 



170 Stories from McClure’s 

said: “ John Alexander, when we get in, 

you go to Aleck (the foreman) and get 
changed to some other engine.” 

There was a queer look on his face; it 
was not anger; it was not sorrow—it was 
more like pain. I looked the man straight 
in the eye, and said: “ All right, Jim; it 
shall be as you say—but, so help me God, 
I don’t know what for. If you will tell me 
what I have done that is wrong, I will not 
make the same mistake with the next man I 
fire for.” 

He looked away from me, reached over 
and started the pump, and said: “ Don’t 

you know ? ” 

“ No, sir, I have not the slightest idea.” 

“ Then you stay, and I’ll change,” said 
he, with a determined look, and leaned out 
of the window, and said no more all the 
way in. 

1 did not go home that day. I cleaned 
the “ Roger William ” from the top of that 
mountain of sheet-iron known as a wood- 
burner stack to the back casting on the 
tank, and tried to think what I had done 
wrong, or not done at all, to incur such dis- 


An Engineer’s Christmas Story 


171 

pleasure from Dillon. He was in bed when 
I went to the house that evening, and I did 
not see him until breakfast. He was in his 
usual spirits there, but on the way to the 
station, and all day long, he did not speak 
to me. He noticed the extra cleaning, and 
carefully avoided tarnishing any of the cab- 
fittingsbut that awful quiet! I could 
hardly bear it, and was half sick at the 
trouble, the cause of which I could not 
understand. I thought that, if the patched 
bill had anything to do with it, Christmas 
morning would clear it up. 

Our return trip was the night express, 
leaving the terminus at 9.30. As usual, 
that night I got the engine out, oiled„. 
switched out the cars, and took the train to 
the station, trimmed my signals and head¬ 
light, and was all ready for Tim to pull out. 
Nine o’clock came, and no Jim; at 9.10 I 
sent to his boarding-house. He had not 
been there. He did not come at leaving 
time—he did not come at all. At ten o’clock 
the conductor sent to the engine-house for 
another engineer, and at 10.45, instead of 
an engineer, a fireman came, with orders 


172 


Stories from McClure’s 


for John Alexander to run the “ Roger 
William ” until further orders,—I never 
fired a locomotive again. 

I went over that road the saddest-hearted 
man that ever made a maiden trip. I hoped 
there would be some tidings of Jim at home 
—there were none. I can never forget the 
blow it was to “ mother ”; how she braced 
up on account of her children—but oh, that 
sad face! Christmas came, and with it the 
daughter, and then there were two instead 
of one,—the boy was frantic the first day, 
and playing marbles the next. 

Christmas day there came a letter. It 
was from Jim—brief and cold enough— 
but it was such a comfort to “ mother.” It 
was directed to Mary J. Dillon, and bore the 
New York post-mark. It read: 

“ Uncle Sam is in need of men, and those 
who lose with Venus may win with Mars. 
Enclosed papers you will know best what 
to do with. Be a mother to the children— 
you have three of them. 

“ James Dillon." 


An Engineer’s Christmas Story 173 

He underscored the three—he was a mys¬ 
tery to me. Poor “ mother ” ! She de¬ 
clared that no doubt “ poor James’s head 
was affected.” The papers with the letter 
were a will, leaving her all, and a power of 
attorney, allowing her to dispose of or use 
the money in the bank. Not a line of en¬ 
dearment or love for that faithful heart 
that lived on love, asked only for love, and 
cared for little else. 

That Christmas was a day of fasting and 
prayer for us. Many letters did we send, 
many advertisements were printed, but we 
never got a word from James Dillon, and 
Uncle Sam’s army was too big to hunt 
in. We were a changed family: quieter 
and more tender of one another’s feelings, 
but changed. 

In the fall of ’64, they changed the runs 
around, and I was booked to run into 

M-• Ed, the boy, was firing for me. 

There was no reason why “ mother ” should 
stay in Boston, and we moved out to the 
little farm. That daughter, who was a 
second “mother” all over, used to come 
down to meet us at the station with the 



174 Stories from McClure’s 

horse, and I talked “ sweet ” to her; yet at 
a certain point in the sweetness I became 
dumb. 

Along in May, ’65, “ mother ” got a pack¬ 
age from Washington. It contained a tin¬ 
type of herself; a card with a hole in it 
(made evidently by having been forced over 
a button), on which was her name and the 
old address in town; then there was a ring 
and a saber, and on the blade of the saber 
was etched, “ Presented to Lieutenant Jas. 
Dillon, for bravery on the field of battle.” 
At the bottom of the parcel was a note in a 
strange hand, saying simply, “ Found on 
the body of Lieutenant Dillon after the 
battle of Five Forks.” 

Poor “ mother ” ! Her heart was wrung 
again, and again the scalding tears fell. 
She never told her suffering, and no one 
ever knew what she bore. Her face was a 
little sadder and sweeter, her hair a little 
whiter—that was all. 

I am not a bit superstitious—don't be¬ 
lieve in signs or presentiments or pre¬ 
nothings—but when I went to get my pay 
on the 14th day of December, 1866, it gave 


i75 


An Engineer’s Christmas Story 

me a little start to find in it the bill bearing 
the chromo of the Goddess of Liberty with 
the little three-cornered piece of court- 
plaster that Dillon had put on her wind¬ 
pipe. I got rid of it at once, and said 
nothing to “ mother ” about it; but I kept 
thinking of it and seeing it all the next day 
and night. 

On the night of the 16th, I was oiling 
around my Black Maria to take out a local 
leaving our western terminus just after 
dark, when a tall, slim old gentleman 
stepped up to me and asked if I was the 
engineer. I don’t suppose I looked like the 
president: I confessed, and held up my 
torch, so I could see his face—a pretty 
tough-looking face. The white mustache 
was one of that military kind, reinforced 
with whiskers on the right and left flank of 
the mustache proper. He wore glasses, 
and one of the lights was ground glass. 
The right cheek bone was crushed in, and 
a red scar extended across the eye and 
cheek; the scar looked blue around the red 
line because of the cold. 


176 


Stories from McClure’s 


“ I used to be an engineer before the 
war,” said he. “ Do you go to Boston? ” 

“ No, to M-.” 

“ M-! I thought that was on a 

branch.” 

“ It is, but is now an important manu¬ 
facturing point, with regular trains from 
there to each end of the main line.” 

“ When can I get to Boston? ” 

“ Not till Monday now; we run no 
through Sunday trains. You can go to 

M- with me to-night, and catch a local 

to Boston in the morning.” 

He thought a minute, and then said, 

“ Well, yes ; guess I had better. How is it 
for a ride?” 

“ Good; just tell the conductor that I 
told you to get on.” 

“ Thanks; that’s clever. I used to know 
a soldier who used to run up in this coun¬ 
try,” said the stranger, musing. “ Dillon : 
that’s it, Dillon.” 

“ I knew him well,” said I. “ I want to 
hear about him.” 

“ Queer man,” said he, and I noticed he 
was eyeing me pretty sharp. / 





An Engineer’s Christmas Story 

“ A good engineer.” 

“ Perhaps,” said he. 

I coaxed the old veteran to ride on the 
engine—the first coal-burner I had had. 
He seemed more than glad to comply. Ed 
was as black as a negro, and swearing about 
coal-burners in general and this one in par¬ 
ticular, and made so much noise with his 
fire-irons after we started that the old man 
came over and sat behind me, so as to be 
able to talk. 

The first time I looked around after get¬ 
ting out of the yard, I noticed his long slim 
hand on the top of the reverse-lever. Did 
you ever notice how it seems to make an 
ex-engineer feel better and more satisfied to 
get his hand on a reverse-lever and feel the 
life-throbs of the great giant under him? 
Why, his hand goes there by instinct—just 
as an ambulance surgeon will feel for the 
heart of the boy with a broken leg. 

I asked the stranger to “ give her a 
whirl,” and noticed with what eager joy 
he took hold of her. I also observed with 
surprise that he seemed to know all about 
“ four-mile hill,” where most new men got 


i 7 8 


Stories from McClure’s 


stuck. He caught me looking at his face, 
and touching the scar, remarked: “ A little 
love pat, with the compliments of Wade 
Hampton’s men.” We talked on a good 
many subjects, and got pretty well ac¬ 
quainted before we were over the division, 
but at last we seemed talked out. 

“ Where does Dillon’s folks live now ? ” 
asked the stranger, slowly after a time. 

“M-,” said I. 

He nearly jumped off the box. “ M-? 

I thought it was Boston! ” 

“ Moved to M-.” 

“ What for?” 

“ Own a farm there.” 

“ Oh, I see; married again ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ No!” 

“ Widow thought too much of Tim for 
that.” 

“ No!” 

“ Y es.” 

Er what became of the young man 
that they—er—adopted?” 

“ Lives with ’em yet.” 

“ So? ” 



An Engineer’s Christmas Story 


*79 


Just then we struck the suburbs of 

M-, and, as we passed the cemetery, I 

pointed to a high shaft, and said: “Dil¬ 
lon’s monument.” 

“ Why, how’s that ? ” 

“ Killed at Five Forks. Widow put up 
monument.” 

He shaded his eyes with his hand, and 
peered through the moonlight for a minute. 

“ That’s clever,” was all he said. 

I insisted that he go home with me. Ed 
took the Black Maria to the house, and we 
took the street cars for it to the end of the 
line, and then walked. As we cleaned our 
feet at the door, I said: “ Let me see, I did 
not hear your name ? ” 

“ James,” said he, “ Mr. James.” 

I opened the sitting-room door, and 
ushered the stranger in. 

“ Well, boys,” said “ mother,” slowly 
getting up from before the fire and hur¬ 
riedly taking a few extra stitches in her 
knitting before laying it down to look up 
at us, “ you’re early.” 

She looked up, not ten feet from the 
stranger, as he took off his slouched hat 



i8o 


Stories from McClure’s 


and brushed back the white hair. In an¬ 
other minute her arms were around his 
neck, and she was murmuring “ James ” in 
his ear, and, I, like a dumb fool, wondered 
who told her his name. 

Well, to make a long story short, it was 
James Dillon himself, and the daughter 
came in, and Ed came, and between the 
three they nearly smothered the old fellow. 

You may thing it funny he didn’t know 
me, but don’t forget that I had been run¬ 
ning for three years—that takes the fresh 
off a fellow; then, when I had the typhoid, 
my hair laid off, and was never reinstated, 
and when I got well, the whiskers—that 
had always refused to grow—came on with 
a rush, and they were red. And again, I 
had tried to switch with an old hook-motion 
in the night and forgot to take out the 
starting-bar, and she threw it at me, knock¬ 
ing out some teeth; and taking it altogether, 
I was a changed man. 

“ Where’s John? ” he said finally. 

“ Here,” said I. y 

“ No!” 

“ Yes.” 


An Engineer’s Christmas Story 181 

He took my hand, and said, “ John, I left 
all that was dear to me once because I was 
jealous of you. I never knew how you 
came to have that money or why, and don’t 
want to. Forgive me.” 

That is the first time I ever heard of 
that,” said “ mother.” 

“ I had it to buy this farm for you—a 
Christmas present—if you had waited,” 
said I. 

“ That is the first time I ever heard of 
that,” said he. 

“ And you might have been shot,” said 
“ mother,” getting up close. 

“ I tried my darndest to be. That’s why 
I got promoted so fast.” 

“ Oh, James!” and her arms were around 
his neck again. 

“ And I sent that saber home myself, 
never intending to come back.” 

“ Oh, James, how could you! ” 

“ Mother, how can you forgive me ? ” 

“ Mother ” was still for a minute, look¬ 
ing at the fire in the grate. “ James, it is 
late in life to apply such tests, but love is 
like gold; ours will be better now—the 


182 


Stories from McClure’s 


dross has been burned away in the fire. I 
did what I did for love of you, and you did 
what you did for love of me; let us all com¬ 
mence to live again in the old way,” and 
those arms of hers could not keep away 
from his neck. 

Ed went out with tears in his eyes, and 
I beckoned the daughter to follow me. We 
passed into the parlor, drew the curtain over 
the doorway—and there was nothing but 
that rag between us and heaven. 









































































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